ibvavy of Mtttycw. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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FORTY YEARS' 



(B%$mma m Suvfou%-St]iQQh. 



BY 



STEPHEN H. TYNG-, D.D., 

LECTOR OF ST. GEORGE'S CHURCH, NEW YORK. 



NEW YORK: 

SHELDON <5c COMPANY. 
BOSTON : GOULD & LINCOLN. 

1860. 



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% st*^A+*o*/f* €> 






Entered, according to Act of Cougress, in the year 1S60, by 

SHELDON & COMPANY, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for 

the Southern District of New York. 



stereotyped by psksted by 

Smith & McDougal, Pudney & Russell, 

82 & 84 Beekman-st ,, N. Y. 79 John-street, N. Y. 






INTRODUCTION. 



The importance of the subject of this little vol- 
ume none can doubt. There is a familiarity in 
treating it, and a desultory method pursued in its 
discussion which may be considered inappropriate 
for a book. I have only to say, the chapters herein 
contained, were so many distinct letters addressed to 
a friend who was the Superintendent of a Sunday- 
school, at his own request. After a publication in 
the Independent had given them a very extensive 
circulation, their compact publication in the present 
.form was also solicited. They are the simple lan- 
guage of personal experience and observation in the 
field of which they treat. They may be the instru- 
ment of suggesting other and better thoughts and 



IV INTRODUCTION. 

experience to other minds. I can not but hope 
they will be made useful to many. If they shall 
but set Christians and ministers to thinking, in- 
quiring, and speaking, even in opposition to some 
of the sentiments they contain, they will do good. 
There can be but one result to which conscientious 
thought and inquiry must lead, and with that the 
end and purpose of the book will be so far attained. 
To his brethren in the ministry of the whole 
Church of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to his sym- 
pathizing friends, the Sunday-school teachers in all 
the Churches, the author gratefully presents his 
little work, praying for their countenance, and the 
Lord's blessing. 

St. Geoege's Rectoey. 

New York, August 1, 1860. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

I.— Personal History.— Quincy, Mass.— St. Paul's, Phil- 
adelphia. — Epiphany, Philadelphia : 7 

II.— St. George's, New York. — New Church.— Schools in 
New Church. — Exercises and Plans for Schools.... 15 

III. — Failure op Teachers. — Advantages of Sunday- 
schools. — Conversion of Children. — Eesults of Ef- 
forts. — Revival in St. Paul's. — Fruits of Teaching. 26 

IV.— Manner of Teaching. — Useful Teachers. — John 
Fark. — Young Female Teacher. — Lovely Child in 
Epiphany School 36 

V. — Later Eesults.— Two Different Cases. — Dying Chil- 
dren. — Love of Children for Sunday-school. — Ef- 
fects on Families. — Home Teaching 48 

VI. — Repining. — Elevating Influence. — A Professor in 
College. — A Female Principal. — The Poor Children. 
— Missionary Knowledge. — Contributions 60 

VII. — Future Benefits. — Present Actual Gains. — Obliga- 
tions of Pastors 69 

VIII.— Agency.— Teachers.— Value.— Usefulness. — Quali- 
fications — True Piety X8 

IX. — Teachers. — Religious Knowledge. — Scriptural 
Knowledge. — Special Preparation. — Love for Souls. 
— Efforts for Salvation 87 

X.— Teachers. — The Best Needed. — Missionary from 
Africa.— Love the Rule.— Boys and Girls Taught 
Together.— Foolish Quarrels 96 

XL— Teachers. — Punctuality. — Divine Aid. — Prayer. — 
Opening Worship,— Prayer for Children.— Quiet 
Attention 105 



VI CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

XII. — Superintendent. — Punctuality. — Christian Charac- 
ter.— Intelligence. — Kindness 115 

XIII. — Anniversaries. — Anniversary Books. — Mission- 
ary Contributions. — Eleventh Anniversary. — St. 
George's. — Account of Schools 124 

XIV. — Relation to the Church. — General Sunday-school 
Cause. — Independence op the Sunday-schools. — 
Change of feeling in the Church 135 

XV. — Relation to the CnuRcn. — Duty of the CnuRcn. — 

Mission Schools 144 

XVI. — Duty of the Churches.— Suitable Buildings. — 
Provision for Mission Schools. — Method of Con- 
ducting 154 

XVII. — Mission Schools. — Emigrants. — St. George's. — Mis- 
sion Chapel. — Plan and Occupation 163 

XVIII. — Sunday-school Effort. — Public Schools. — Duty of 

the Church to the Cause. — Successful Efforts. . . . 172 

XIX. — Pastoral Duty. — Influence of Sunday-schools. — 
Instances. — The Ministry in relation to this work. 
— Incident at Jaffa 1S1 

XX. — The Ministry. — Pastoral Care.— Neglect. — Per- 
sonal Superintendence. — Value to, the Pastor... 192 

XXI.— The Ministry.— Superintendence ofJSchools. — Per- 
sonal Visiting. — Lectures for Teachers and Chil- 
dren 202 

XXII. — Duty of Schools to the Church. — Church Teaching. 

— Church Relations. — Value of them to Children. 212 

XXIII. — Duty of Teachers. — Catechisms.— The Bible the 

Book for Sunday-school Teaching 222 

XXIV.— Teachers. — Bible Teaching. — Preparation. — 

Prayer.— Illustration.— Simplicity in Teaching... 232 

XXV. — Teachers. — Manners. — Actual "Work. — Blessed Re- 
sults.— Joy in Final Success 242 




I. 



PERSONAL HISTORY. — QUTNCY, MASS. — ST. PAUL'S, PHILADEL- 
PHIA* — EPIPHANY, PHILADELPHIA. 

\Y Dear Friend : You ask for some 
notes of my personal experience in 
connection with Sunday-schools, and 
some of the results of that experience. 
I shall be glad to gratify you in a 
very simple and desultory way, having no time 
to arrange any thing in a more methodical or 
didactic shape. The proposal will lead me 
first to a few reminiscences of my own con- 
nection with these interesting nurseries of the 
Church of Christ. 

In the year 1819, when a candidate for the 
ministry, I was first sent forth by Bishop G-ris- 
wold, as a young laborer in the Gospel, under 
the title of what we call in the Episcopal 
Church a Lay Eeader, which included, in those 
days, the utmost range of personal exhortation 



8 QUINCY, MASS. 

and preaching. I was directed by him to the 
temporary charge of a small, vacant Episcopal 
church in Quincy, Mass. A few scattered fam- 
ilies and individuals made up the congregation, 
of whom two ladies, still living and useful in 
the church, agreed to unite with me in the 
opening of a Sunday-school. Such an enter- 
prise had never been undertaken or seen by 
either of us ; nor had there ever been a Sun- 
day-school in the town. But the zeal and 
love of young Christians, earnest in the Lord's 
service, will furnish both the model and the 
accomplishment of what they are prompted to 
undertake for him. We scoured the town 
among the families to whom we had access, 
and among whom we could circulate our noti- 
ces, to invite children of all kinds to our school 
on the aj>pointed Sabbath. To our amaze- 
ment, when the morning arrived, we found per- 
haps fifty children assembled, a larger number 
than our whole congregation had ever been be- 
fore. Our youthful hearts rejoiced, and our in- 
experienced hands were full. There were four 
teachers besides myself — the two young ladies, 



QUINCY, MASS. 9 

and two young men whose family attended the 
church. We knew but little of the work we 
had undertaken, but we had hearts that desired 
to work, and a love for the enterprise with 
which the Lord had so remarkably honored us. 
We labored on with a happy spirit and suc- 
cessful results. The first boy whose name I 
took at the opening of that school, has been 
for more than twenty years a distinguished 
minister of the Episcopal Church. One of the 
two male teachers gave his life to the Foreign 
Missionary work ; and died in Ceylon. The 
other was taken away while in his course of 
theological study, and the two ladies are still 
living, active and useful in the Lord's work. 
Little as I knew then, this first Sunday- 
school was a very exciting and stirring event of 
my life. It had the effect of an entire enlist- 
ment of my affections and efforts in this work. 
But my subsequent early ministry was for sev- 
eral years in a very scattered and wide-spread 
country, where the gathering of large Sunday- 
schools was impossible. And yet I have but 
the last week received a letter from the Sunday 



10 st. Paul's, Philadelphia 



school missionary laboring in that region of the 
South, informing me that thirty public prima- 
ry school-rooms in the county are now offered 
for Sunday-school occupation, and asking my 
co-operation in furnishing means for libraries 
for their use. So remarkably has the work 
progressed and enlarged in our day. 

In the spring of 1829, I was called to St. 
Paul's church, in the city of Philadelphia, 
where there had been Sunday-schools, very com- 
plete and well arranged, from 1S16. There 
were in those schools perhaps four hundred 
children. They made a very effective arrange- 
ment in both sexes, from adult Bible-classes 
down to infant schools. The best and most 
intelligent members of the church were en- 
gaged in them. Many of the niost influential 
of the officers of the church were also occu- 
pied in them. They were wisely, intelligently, 
and efficiently conducted. They made the very 
field of labor for which I had longed, and which 
I ardently and instantly embraced. I organized 
a weekly lecture on the lesson for the teachers, 
and had beside a weekly Bible-class of -ladies, 



ST. PAULAS, PHILADELPHIA. 11 

including the female teachers. I spent every 
Sabbath morning in a personal visitation of all 
the schools, examining the classes and aiding to 
the utmost of my power in the work of teach- 
ing, often having the opportunity to take some 
vacant class, and thus come into direct contact 
with the children themselves. I gave every 
Sunday afternoon, when our public service was 
in the evening, to a personal address to all the 
schools combined. 

A whole generation has since passed away. 
The children of that day are now the active 
mature workers in our churches. More than 
ten of them have become preachers of the 
Gospel. Over one hundred and fifty have 
given themselves to the Lord's service in the 
lay fellowship and labor of the churches. 
How many more of all these clusters of 
fruit have been gathered since, from the same 
heavenly plant, I have no adequate means 
of knowing. Those schools have all been 
maintained in all then' efficiency to the present 
time. Never were they so strong and prosper- 
ous as under the present rector of St. Paul's, 



12 EPIPHANY, PHILADELPHIA 



who was one of the boys of that day, and who 
has proved himself so earnest, and successful 
in the Sunday-school work ; in his ministry since. 
I imagine these schools may be regarded as a 
model of successful effort at the present day. 

Five years' ministry at St. Paul's prepared 
me with a knowledge and experience which 
were brought into operation in the successful 
founding and establishment of the Church 
of the Epiphany in the same city. That 
church was founded upon the Sunday-school. 
Its energy and strength were given to the 
school. Previously the Sunday-school had 
been considered an appendage to the church, 
and by some ministers and members a trouble- 
some appendage. We founded this church 
with the distinct understanding and plan, that 
the Sunday-school should be the main and 
prominent object of regard, and its convenience 
and successful operation thoroughly provided 
for ; and we carried out this principle com- 
pletely. These schools in their general features 
were arranged as those at St. Paul's. They 
were opened in December, 1834, with four 



EPIPHANY, PHILADELPHIA. 13 

teachers and ten scholars in the male school, 
and five teachers and fifteen scholars in the 
female school. They were left by me in 1845, 
when I removed to New York, with thirty- 
eight teachers and three hundred and eighty- 
one scholars in the male, and forty-two teach- 
ers and four hundred and twenty- three scholars 
in the female department. I have never seen 
elsewhere, schools at all equal to them in the 
whole scheme and elements of successful ope- 
ration. They were blessed with many very 
precious evidences of the Lord's presence and 
grace, and large numbers from them were gath- 
ered to the table of the Lord, and already 
many young ministers are in the Lord's work, 
who have gone forth from them. To these 
schools, I continued my habit of a weekly lec- 
ture to teachers, a weekly female Bible-class, a 
monthly address to the schools, and the giving 
of every Sunday morning to a supervision of 
the work as it went on. In these I established 
also an Anniversary, with the donation of books 
to every scholar, as a token of our mutual in- 
terest and aifection. And when I survey my 



14 EPIPHANY, PHILADELPHIA. 

Philadelphia work of sixteen years, no part of 
it seems to me to have been so remunerative 
and happy as my connection with my Sunday- 
schools. Incidents and facts of this connec- 
tion may come up in some future communica- 
tions. But they were happy, useful, and 
improving hours which were so occupied. 
And God was pleased very largely to add his 
blessing to the work. No toil could be more 
delightful, or bearing richer fruits. 




II. 



ST. GEORGE'S, NEW YORK. — NEW CHURCH.— SCHOOLS IN NEW 
CHURCH. — EXERCISES AND PLANS FOR SCHOOLS. 

. EKHAPS an apology is necessary for en- 
tering so largely upon the history of 
my own personal relations to Sunday- 
schools. But understanding your desire 
to be a practical account of my individ- 
ual experience and observation of the working 
and results of these precious nurseries of our 
youth, I saw no way to get at it so simply and 
naturally, as by the introduction of a personal 
narrative. Do not blame me then in the utter- 
ance of stories of personal affection and in- 
terest. In 1845, I was most unexpectedly 
transferred in my ministry to this city. St. 
George's church had always been distinguished 
for a lively and active interest in Sunday- 
schools, and honored by the labors of a faith- 
ful pastor and an earnest body of teachers. 



16 NEW CHURCH. 

But our removal of the church to a new field 
of labor occurred so soon after my coming into 
the pastoral relation here, that I had no oppor- 
tunity in the old church to do more than to 
co-operate, as earnestly and actively as I could, 
in the limited schools which I found in Beek- 
man street. We entered upon our new under- 
taking in the autumn of 1847, but did not oc- 
cupy our new church until November, 1848, 
nor till a year after that, had we any building 
apart from the church in which the schools 
might be held. Till then we struggled on in 
the gallery of the church, in a very scattered 
and unsatisfactory way. 

But our new enterprise was in its very foun- 
dation and purpose, like the Epiphany, a Sun- 
day-school church. Several of the officers of 
the church became engaged in the work. The 
Vestry adopted it and provided for it in the 
most liberal and effective manner. Appropria- 
tions and arrangements for its convenience and 
accommodation were made with cheerfulness 
and pleasure. A cordial and lively interest in 
the work always marked their deliberations 



SCHOOLS IN NEW CHURCH. 17 

and plans ; and much of the prosperity of these 
schools has depended upon this zeal and gener- 
ous interest in them on the part of the Vestry 
of this church. We have never needed funds, 
or laborers ; or affectionate support, which have 
not been at once forthcoming and efficient. The 
children of our congregation have, as a rule, uni- 
formly attended our Sunday-school, and thus 
every family in the church, rich and poor, have 
felt themselves possessed of a common property 
and a common responsibility in everything 
which has concerned the welfare and success 
of the undertaking. 

We commenced our school in October, 1847, 
in the University chapel, with about thirty chil- 
dren of all classes, and in the year of our oc- 
cupation there, could grow but little. But it 
was a living coal, however small, and though 
a little matter, kindled for us a great fire. In 
the spring of 1850, when we held our first an- 
niversary, we had grown to forty-two teachers 
and five hundred and five scholars. This was 
the first year of our meeting in our new chapel, 
and the first spring after the completion of our 



18 SCHOOLS IN NEW CHURCH. 

church. In two more years, so rapidly had 
we grown, that our third anniversary gave us 
a total of one thousand and two. Our infant 
school, which was commenced in the organ gal- 
lery of the church with eleven children in 1849, 
had now enlarged to two hundred and eighty- 
eight, under the same teacher. The crowds in 
our one building, and the multitudes of poor 
children still seeking admission, compelled us 
after this to engage in the establishment of a 
mission school, of which I shall desire to speak 
in a separate account. Our sixth anniversary, 
the first which included the mission school, 
presented ninety-five teachers and one thous- 
and five hundred and thirty-six scholars. And 
this has remained about our average number 
since. Our tenth anniversary, in the spring of 
1859, closed with one hundred and six teachers 
and one thousand five hundred and sixty-five 
scholars. But in these ten years more than 
ten different schools had been established by 
other churches in the field which we had at 
first occupied alone. I had always anticipated 
a diminution of our numbers as inevitable, un- 



EXERCISES AND PLANS FOR SCHOOLS. 19 

der a process like this. We have found, how- 
ever, no essential difference in our own number, 
while there are probably near two thousand 
children now gathered in other Sunday-schools 
of various kinds, within the limits which were 
then our sole domain. It is to me a very 
happy and grateful thought that our efforts 
have not been without their influence in en- 
couraging and fostering these adjuvant efforts, 
so that God may have made us a blessing be- 
yond our own direct labor and immediate rela- 
tions. With the attainment of such a result, 
I should have felt no surprise, and I trust no- 
sorrow, at a necessary lessening of our num- 
bers, in the more general spreading of the in- 
fluence and the work around us. If our poor 
children may be taught the Saviour's word, and 
fed with the Saviour's love, I trust it will be 
always our part and purpose only to rejoice, 
whoever may be made the blessed instruments 
of the glorious result. 

In the organization of the schools now un- 
der my more immediate notice and care, ex- 
cepting for the present all reference to our mis- 



20 EXERCISES AND PLANS FOR SCHOOLS. 

sion schools, we have six different rooms for 
instruction. One infant school under two 
teachers, of three hundred and twenty chil- 
dren ; another infant school under one teacher, 
of one hundred and thirty-five children ; two 
female Bible-classes, one of fifty-seven and an- 
other of thirty-nine young ladies, in two sep- 
arate rooms, under two female teachers ; a 
young men's Bible-class of thirty-three mem- 
bers, with one teacher ; and in our main 
school, two hundred and seventy-eight girls 
and two hundred and forty boys, under fifty- 
eight teachers. All these have always been 
under the superintendence of one executive 
head as superintendent. We have thus means 
and arrangements for appropriate teaching for 
every age and class from three years old to full 
maturity. All these departments are in com- 
plete and successful operation, and under the 
most harmonious arrangement and control. 
For the first seven years of our growth and 
establishment here, I was favored with the 
aid of two valued and efficient laymen, who 
successively had the superintendence of this 



EXERCISES AND PLANS FOR SCHOOLS. 21 

large array of youth. Since their necessary 
separation from the work, I have taken the 
entire personal superintendence myself. From * 
the commencement of this school, I have ; never 
failed to go through all these rooms and classes, 
and to maintain a personal inspection and 
oversight of the whole operation in all its 
branches and its practical details. For the last 
three years I have given my whole time and 
presence to their actual personal management, 
during the whole period of the session. If 
you should be disposed to ask why I have un- 
dertaken this additional labor, I can only say, 
because my whole experience of the operation 
has so enlarged my sense of its importance, 
and my affectionate personal interest therein, 
that I have felt it a vast pleasure and enjoy- 
ment to be myself personally and constantly 
engaged in its duties and its success. I have 
around me valued laymen whom I should be 
glad to see earnestly at work, and very faithful 
teachers who are constantly so. But thus far, 
neither the amount of actual toil, nor the im- 
portance of keeping the lay power of the 



22 EXERCISES AND PLANS FOR SCHOOLS. 

church, engaged, has been sufficient to over- 
come my own selfish delight in the occupation, 
. or my unwillingness to relinquish it. Perhaps 
in this I have been wrong. But I have seen 
some very blessed and valuable results arising 
from the labors thus pursued. And in a future 
consideration of some general elements and 
principles involved and developed in the whole 
process/ 1 shall have occasion to sjoeak of this 
subject more particularly again. 

In these schools, from their commencement, 
I have given a weekly lecture on every Friday 
evening, on the lesson for the ensuing Sunday, 
trying in this method to illustrate not merely 
the subjects involved, but also the simplest and 
most effectual manner of teaching. The great 
object in this lecture always is to bring out the 
important evangelical principles which are ex- 
hibited in every portion of Scripture history 
as well as teaching* that our children may 
learn to see the Saviour, and something of his 
grace, everywhere in the words of Divine in- 
spiration. I have always thought that every 
portion of the Word of Grod speaks of his sal- 



EXERCISES AND PLANS FOR SCHOOLS. 23 

vation, in some illustration or description, 
either of its agencies, its principles, or its re- 
sults. And therefore if teachers can be as- 
sisted in bringing out this hidden light of 
Divine truth, that it may all shine upon the 
Saviour, to their children, as it all shines from 
him in the Word, they may gain advantages 
of precious value to themselves while they are 
imparting like precious instruction in living 
truths to the children before them. I have 
thrown this into the shape of a familiar per- 
sonal lecture, rather than a catechetical exam- 
ination with the teachers, because the interest 
seems greater to them, and the same oppor- 
tunity is given to other members of the con- 
gregation who desire it, to gain the same bene- 
fit of simple practical instruction in the Word 
of God. 

I have always felt the importance of some 
further personal relations to the Sunday-school 
than could be maintained merely through the 
teachers. And from the time of my first re- 
moval to Philadelphia, I established a monthly 
sermon for the children, in order to bring my 



24 EXERCISES AND PLANS FOR SCHOOLS. 

personal instructions more directly to bear 
upon them. This monthly address on Sunday 
afternoon I have continued until the past year, 
when my morning opportunity seemed to ren- 
der it no longer especially necessary. But 
when our new St. George's was opened in 
1848, such was the attendance of youth around 
me, that I was not satisfied with the amount 
of direct attention which was given to them. 
I then made the sermon of every Sunday after- 
noon a sermon to the young. This plan I 
have continued to the present time. It has 
been one of the most interesting and effective 
of my labors in the ministry. I have pursued 
a course of connected instruction in series of 
plain and intelligible lectures on various Scrip- 
ture biographies, of which Buthr and Esther 
have been published, — on Scriptural plants, 
and animals, and mountains, — on Scriptural 
religion as exhibited in youth, — on the Para- 
bles, etc., till I have now gone through eleven 
years of such continued instruction. And the 
Lord has been pleased very graciously and 
mercifully to own this teaching in many 



EXERCISES AND PLANS FOR SCHOOLS. 25 

cases of conversion to himself, and in much 
real edification of youth in his service. I 
have considered no part of my work more 
valuable and important than this. And cer- 
tainly no portion of it has seemed so popu- 
lar and acceptable to others: In addition 
to these instruments, I have employed lectures 
and exhibitions with the magic lantern as an 
instrument of interesting the children in the 
school, and creating a happy and innocent op- 
t unity of amusement for them. Other ele- 
ments of our plan will occur for notice in 
some future heads of remark upon this subject. 
Thus fifteen more years of my personal rela- 
tions to Sunday-schools have passed away, 
and another generation has come to maturity 
under my care. And I still look upon the oc- 
cupation with increasing delight. It seems to 
me every year more and more remunerative 
and encouraging as a ministry for Christ, in 
every way within my power to feed his lambs. 




III. 

FAILURE OF TEACHERS. — ADVANTAGES OF SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. — 
CONVERSION OF CHILDREN. — RESULTS OF EFFORTS. — RE- 
VIVAL IN ST. PAUL'S. — FRUITS OF TEACHING. 

^Y outline of personal history lias 
brought me to a point at which, per- 
haps, I may be permitted to apply 
the results of experience and observa- 
tion to a wider and more abstract field, 
in reference to the important subject involved. 
Forty years' active interest and intelligent con- 
sideration connected with our Sunday-schools, 
have convinced me more and moreTof their value 
and efficiency as an instrument of blessing to 
the church of God. During this period I have 
seen the waxing and waning of many individ- 
ual agencies in this connection. I have 
known brethren who were once earnest advo- 
cates of the system, and have preached and 
prayed for its prosperity, giving up in despair 



FAILURE OF TEACHERS. 27 

or in disgust j and refusing longer to bear the 
anxiety and trial involved in its support. I 
have seen many teachers, of both sexes, wearied 
'and exhausted, either with the fatigue of the 
labor, or the failure of success, and retiring 
from the whole field, to undertake its culti- 
vation no more. I can only say for myself, 
the influence of the operation on my mind has 
been precisely the reverse. Never have I felt 
the importance of the work more really ; and 
never was I more determined to continue my 
labors in it while my Master shall give me 
opportunity and his blessing. And I have, in 
the circle of my most valued acquaintance, 
many teachers who have labored faithfully for 
years, and are still unwearied, and some who 
were active in the work before I began, and are 
still earnestly engaged therein. I desire to re- 
cord my testimony as the result of my whole 
experience, that, in my judgment, there is no 
department of Christian labor more vitally 
influential upon the triumphs of the Gospel — 
more remunerative in its immediate results of 
blessing to the soul engaged — more effective in 



28 ADVANTAGES OF SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. 

maintaining and enlarging the best interests 
of the Christian church and the most efficient 
operation of the Christian ministry. 

Yet my personal experience has not been 
without a clear perception of the difficulties 
and defects in the practical operation, and in 
the way of full and desired success. But 
these lead to the consideration of the very 
practical question. What advantages have we 
a right to expect from our Sunday-schools, as 
fair and legitimate results ? This is a ques- 
tion which long practice, and, perhaps, still 
more, repeated disappointments, will very 
naturally force upon the mind. And the 
more earnest is the interest felt in the opera- 
tion, necessarily the more anxious and habit- 
ual will be the consideration of this question. 
My own answer to this question, arising from 
anticipations always cherished, and from act- 
ual results partly attained, would involve sev- 
eral important particulars. 

I should, first of all, say, we have a right to 
expect the actual conversion of our children, 
under the influence of Divine truth faithfully 



CONVERSION OF CHILDREN. 29 

and simply taught. The grand uniform in- 
struction of the Sunday-school is to be in the 
Word of truth ; and supposing the praying 
and experienced Christian teacher expounding 
and applying this, with a dependence on the 
heavenly teaching to bless his own, we surely 
may look for that manifestation of the power 
of this transforming truth to the children's 
minds and hearts. This, or any subsequent 
suggestion will not be pursued by me, in any 
shape of controversy or argument. I shall 
simply state what are my own personal views 
and conclusions. I cannot consent to any 
lower result, as a satisfactory object and pur- 
pose in a teacher's mind, than this. The 
teacher's thought and plan must be that of a 
real and living messenger of Christ, to a little 
congregation whose eternity may depend upon 
this immediate relation and opportunity, and 
whose salvation, never to be secured but in a 
cordial acceptance of a Saviour's finished work 
of love, may be secured under the present 
agency, and with the Divine blessing on the 

means now faithfully employed. And in the 

13* 



30 RESULTS OF EFFORTS. 

faithful and earnest employment of these 
means we have a right to look for the conver- 
sion of children to Jesus, and their living by 
the Holy Spirit for God. The qualifications 
of adequate teachers I do not now consider, 
but suppose them fully and actually possessed 
and exercised. This being so, the pastor, the 
parents, and the church may justly desire and 
expect that God will bless the work with this 
all-important result. A seed will be growing 
up in the church who shall really serve him. 

When I survey the actual results of bless- 
ing which I have witnessed under this one 
great head, I have much reason to bear my 
testimony that God has never failed to bless 
his Word, thus faithfully ministered, in some 
degree. I certainly have never seen the full- 
ness of these spiritual fruits which I have de- 
sired. Yet I have not been without frequent 
proofs of the love and presence of God as a 
Saviour among us in the conversion of our 
children. In the thirty-one years during 
which I have now been a city pastor, and per- 
sonally connected with large schools, I have 



REVIVAL IN ST. PAUl/S. 31 

received to the Lord's table over three hun- 
dred youth of both sexes, directly from the 
Sunday-school. And I have no doubt I might 
with equal truth add two hundred more, unit- 
ing with us from the resulting influence of 
previous Sunday-school instruction. This 
is doubtless a great and blessed result, which 
must give joy in the kingdom of God for ever. 
Yet it has hardly been one in ten of the chil- 
dren to whom I have seen these priceless 
blessings dispensed, and over whose favored 
youth I have watched as a pastor. An early 
revival in St. Paul's church in Philadelphia, 
commenced in our iveekly Sunday-school 
prayer-meeting on Saturday evening. The 
exercises closed, and the people were dis- 
missed, when, rising from my place, I counted- 
sixteen of our youth still on their knees on the 
floor. They were apparently immovable from 
their position, and in deep emotion. I went 
from one to the other with a few words of 
affectionate and pastoral conversation, and 
appointed Monday evening as an occasion for 
their special assembly. On the next day I 



32 SICK GIRL. 

gave notice of this appointment, and over 
seventy youth met me for instruction and 
prayer. It was the divine commencement of 
a very remarkable work of mercy. The result 
was the addition of over one hundred, mostly 
from the Sunday-school, to the communion of 
the Church. The subjects of that work are 
now active and earnest Christians, in the ma- 
turity, of grace. Many such results, upon a 
narrower scale, have I since witnessed, and in 
every class of society, in connection with our 
Sunday-schools. I was called, in Philadelphia, 
to visit a sick girl in a very worldly and irre- 
ligious household, with whom I had but little 
acquaintance — and went, anticipating only a 
painful visit of warning to a careless soul. 
. To my astonishment, I found a^gentle child 
of grace, perhaps eighteen years of age, sink- 
ing in a consumption, but perfectly clear in 
mind, and happy in hope. "How," I asked, 
" have you learned all this in your condition 
here ?"' Her answer was most precious. " I 
had a faithful Sunday-school teacher — and 
though I left her some years ago, and never 



HAPPY RESULTS. 33 

gave her much satisfaction, yet when I was 
taken sick, I took ray little Bible, and went 
over the lessons she used to teach me — and 
God has taught me here alone/' She then 
showed me her little Bible — turned down and 
marked with many Sunday-school lessons — 
her -constant and loved companion. Dear 
child — she had no other religious companion. 
But she departed in sweet peace and hope — 
and my visits to her while she lived were full 
of satisfaction and delight. Similar instances 
of actual conversion under Sunday-school in- 
struction have occurred in such numbers that 
I might fill many sheets of paper with them. 
I have seen them manifested in children from 
six years old and upwards ; infants giving a 
clear account of their hope in- Jesus, and love 
to Him — and thus, according to the promise 
of the Spirit, " perfecting His praise." I have 
seen whole families brought to Christ under 
such influence, who were far off from all 
Christian habits even, until little ones carried 
home from the Sunday-school the life-giving 
messages of truth. I have seen most interest- 



34 WHAT MIGHT BE DONE. 

esting exhibitions of deep and real religious 
fervor and faithfulness in the actual instruc- 
tion ; teachers and children really alive to 
their work, and completely engaged in its en- 
joyment. But as I have marked these blessed 
results, demonstrated possible and within 
reach, my heart has longed to see a constant 
and extended manifestation of such Divine 
influence in this youthful congregation. When 
I have looked upon them in their gathering 
and occupation, and spread before my anxious 
mind the value of their youth, the precious- 
ness of their opportunities, the peculiar advan- 
tages of their assembly, the direct promises 
and illustrations connected with the young, 
and seen what might be attained in all, from 
Avhat had been attained in so many, I have 
often been disturbed and overwhelmed by the 
want of real efficiency and vital power con- 
nected with the occupation. I have doubted 
whether the real expectation and object in the 
teachers' minds were the conversion of the 
souls of children. How precious has appeared 
that short hour of instruction ! How import- 



DEPORTMENT OF TEACHERS. 35 

ant every impression which was to be made 
on those open and plastic minds ! And when 
levity or carelessness have occupied the place 
of deep seriousness and concern in the little 
assemblies around me, and teachers and chil- 
dren have appeared listless, or indifferent, or 
trifling, I confess my soul has sunk in many a 
moment of despondency and distress. I have 
longed for a seriousness and solemnity, con- 
nected with cheerfulness and agreeable rela- 
tions on the teachers' part, which would indi- 
cate their apprehension of the unspeakable 
importance of their employment, and value of 
the influence to be exercised. The work has 
often had a tendency to run into a mere amuse- 
ment, and the desire to. make it attractive and 
popular tends to throw a worldly and secular- 
izing influence around it. It is sad to think 
that we have often failed in obtaining the real 
blessing, in the playful and light character 
which we have given to the occupation, and 
have sacrificed to superficial enjoyment the 
more lasting happiness of real conversion. 



IV. 



MANNER OP TEACHING. — USEFUL TEACHERS.— JOHN FARR. — 
YOUNG FEMALE TEACHER. — LOVELY CHILD IN EPIPHANY 
SCHOOL. 

feel encouraged and grateful for the ap- 
parent acceptance and interest which have 
welcomed my hurried attempts to comply 
with your original request. The subject 
is very extensive and has a great variety 
of connections. Should I attempt to 
touch them all, my few familiar letters would 
swell into a volume. The single point now sug- 
gested, the advantages we have a right to ex- 
pect from a faithful cultivation of this impor- 
tant work ; spreads out into a variety of topics 
for consideration. I have said we have a right 
to expect the conversion of our children. 
Upon this point I would not be unintelligible 
or indefinite — by conversion, I mean the real 
spiritual turning of the heart to God, and its 
renewal for His service by the Holy Spirit. 



MANNER OF TEACHING. 37 

This is the only actual starting of true Chris- 
tian character : the new .creation of the soul 
in Christ. Now, I suppose, a faithful Chris- 
tian teacher will propound this to himself as 
an object. It will direct his prayers, his prep- 
arations, his methods of communication, and 
all his personal influence and intercourse with 
his children. He will labor for this great re- 
sult until he gain it. He will not be satisfied 
without it. I do not mean that he shall oc- 
cupy his time with mere exhortation to his 
class. Still less that he shall adopt a vehe- 
ment and imperious style of address in his 
work— a manner which I have sometimes seen 
running into uncomfortable noise and actual 
disturbance. The instrument of conversion 
with children is the same as with adults — the 
Word of truth, the simple message of redeem- 
ing love. This message speaks in the simplest 
language in the sacred Word, and is perfectly 
intelligible to the youngest mind, nay, I often 
think far more so than to elder and more be- 
wildered understandings. And if this message 
of actual pardon in the Saviour's blood, real 



38 MANNER OF TEACHING. 

salvation through His death for all who will re- 
ceive it, is placed before the youthful minds as 
designed for them and belonging to them ; with 
the evidence of sincerity and earnestness on the 
teacher's part, we may as reasonably look for a 
blessing to attend the truth in the experience 
of children as of adults. I call this expecta- 
tion a right, because it seems to me the sub- 
ject of divine promise ; and that which God 
has promised, we have an undoubted right to 
ask and to expect. To this one great point 
every lesson should be brought, and with every 
child. The full attainment of this result, un- 
der the divine blessing, does not imply extra- 
ordinary powers or education on . the teacher's 
part, but a real living experience of the power 
of the truth, and love of the Word of God, 
an earnest desire for the salvation of those to 
whom it is offered, with a real belief that they 
can be, and ought to be saved, under its jxrin- 
istration. This constitutes the adaptation of 
the ministry in the pulpit, and is equally the 
instrument of blessing for precious souls in the 
Sunday-school. 



USEFUL TEACHERS. 39 

I have constantly had before me very blessed 
illustrations of such fidelity and usefulness ; 
teachers to whom education, piety, and indus- 
trious preparation have combined to give great 
efficiency for their work, and whose earnest and 
religious habit and character have made them 
most attractive and popular among the youth 
before them. I have seen Bible-classes, both 
male and female, in which there was a constant 
pressure of attendance, and an outward desire 
to become partakers of the benefits there re- 
ceived, just as earnest. An intelligent, earnest, 
and instructed teacher, with a mind and heart 
engaged in the blessed work thus undertaken, 
believing in its value and influence, and deter- 
mined to carry out that influence, with the 
Lord's blessing and Spirit, to the utmost, will 
always be popular and always efficient. Schol- 
ars will be punctual and happy, and God the 
Saviour will never be found slack in His prom- 
ise of a blessing from heaven upon His "Word. 
He will sanctify them through His truth. Such 
teachers make their mark in the history of the 
Church, and are held in abiding remembrance. 



40 JOHN FARR. 

An eminent instance of this, was John Farr, of 
Philadelphia. He was a native of London, 
and a chemist of practical wisdom and success 
in business. He was one of our Bible-class 
teachers at St. Paul's — a model of a Sunday- 
school teacher. Truly spiritual, thoroughly 
evangelical, deeply earnest, never wearied, al- 
ways attractive, he made his class to be consid- 
ered by young men an invaluable privilege. 
God blessed his labors with increasing manifes- 
tations of divine grace and power. Young 
men now energetic and active in their matu- 
rity, in every class of the laborers in the Church 
of God, would to-day rise up and call him 
blessed. I have no doubt if all who found the 
Saviour under his earnest, constant fidelity, 
were called to stand together as witnesses for 
him, more than one hundred young men would 
appear to testify for him before the Lord. And 
yet I speak of only a portion of his labor in 
this cause. Who can estimate the full result 
for them, for the Church, for the world, of such 
labors as his ? Yet never was there perhaps a 
Christian man more unpretending, unobtrusive, 



YOUNG FEMALE TEACHER. 41 

or simple-hearted than he. He has long since 
entered into his rest in the Saviour's glory. 
God grant to all his scholars grace to hold on 
in folio wing him to the end. 

A lovely young female teacher was taken 
from us at twenty-two years of age. She 
joined us as a teacher at sixteen, and labored 
with us but few years before her crown was 
given to her. Yet her whole class of girls ; 
crowded always, seemed to listen to her with 
hearts perfectly absorbed ; and felt the privilege 
of being taught by her one of the greatest 
joys of their life. Her fidelity in speaking for 
Jesus seemed never to fail. An evening's walk 
or a casual meeting would bring out something 
from her that would be a blessing to others. 
Her household, her friends, all felt the power 
of her religion. More than one young man of - 
her acquaintance traced his conversion to her 
faithfulness. I had reason to believe that at * 
least twenty-five youth around her, and I know 
not how many more, for my opportunity of 
knowledge was partial, were saved by the 
Lord's blessing upon her short but lovely min- 

4* 



42 YOUNG FEMALE TEACHER. 

istry. Yet there was nothing that was remark- 
able in her condition or education, beyond the 
common reach of young ladies in moderate cir- 
cumstances of life. Her power was her religion, 
her fidelity to Christ. She was a real, living 
follower of the Saviour whom she loved, and 
for whom alone she lived. How brightly shine 
these examples and memories of the departed ! 
How encouraging to our earnestness and fidel- 
ity are their histories ! "What a joy to a 
pastor's heart are the answers given by in- 
quiring youth in reference to their own awaken- 
ing, which in these two cases came to me from 

many, " It was Mr. Farr, or Miss , who 

first spoke to me, and aroused my mind to 
think of Christ." How paltry and sinful 
would seem any jealousy on the part of minis- 
ters, of such labors and success. I do not re- 
fer to living illustrations of this fidelity, though 
I might do so. The past furnishes evidence 
enough. 

Now this whole view of the work also gives 
the utmost encouragement in our observation 
of its actual effect on the minds of youth. 



LOVELY CHILD IN EPIPHANY SCHOOL. 43 

Here I must only speak of the past and of 
those who are gone. I call to mind a dear 
child in our Sunday-school, whose early death, 
perhaps at sixteen years of age, sealed a beau- 
tiful testimony for Christ. My frequent Visits 
to her chamber of intense suffering were full 
of comfort and delight. Such was her bodily 
agony that she could not lie down, or hardly 
sleep. But her soul was full of light and joy. 
Yet her teaching had been gathered, perhaps 
wholly, in the Bible-class and church. At 
one visit she said to me, " My precious pastor, 
listen to me. This is the way, I think. First, 
God the Father loved me, and qhose me for 
His child ; then God the Son loved me, and 
came and died for me that I might be His 
child. Then God the Holy Ghost loved me, 
and came and told me I was His child, and 
made me love Him as His child. My precious 
pastor, is this right ?" 

Blessed child of heaven, flesh and blood had 
not revealed it to her, but the Spirit of her 
Father in heaven. On another visit she said, 
" My precious pastor, I have had such a sweet 



44 LOVELY CHILD 

half-night of prayer — no, perhaps only a third 
of the night. And I have been praying for 
you, and for your dear son, that a double por- 
tion of the Spirit may rest upon him — and for 
our dear Epiphany (my Philadelphia church) , 
that God would raise them up a faithful pas- 
tor, and for St. George's, that you may be 
made as great a blessing to them as you have 
been to us. And I thought I should love to 
be with you in St. George's. You know I do 
not know anybody there, but I shall always 
love them because you are there. And then I 
thought, after I am gone, if I were permitted, 
I should ask Jesus to let me visit you in that 
dear church/' Much more she added in the 
same strain, just as fresh in my memory, but 
this is enough. She sat upon her bed with 
her head leaning forward upon her knees, and 
her hands clasped around them. At another 
visit I found her sitting much in the same pos- 
ture in an easy chair. She said " My precious 
pastor," — she never addressed me by any other 
title — "I have had such a sweet dream of 
heaven last night. Do you remember the 



IN EPIPHANY SCHOOL. 45 

little sermon you preached to us about Sweet 
Words and Bitter Words ? Well, I thought 
the language of heaven was made up of all the 
sweet words of earth, and there were no bitter 
words there, and it seemed so lovely to have 
everybody speak to me so." These are a few 
scraps from a multitude of memories of that 
lovely child of God. Her faithful teacher is 
still living, and has even perhaps a fuller 
memory and a fuller joy than I in this re- 
lation. 

These are illustrations of actual results. 
They are deeply interesting, but not peculiar. 
Every really flourishing Sunday-school can 
furnish them. Every pastor, alive in this 
work, has such sheaves in his bosom. Every 
earnest, praying teacher will probably have 
some similar testimony. They are but some 
that have occurred to my mind while I have 
been writing this letter. Memory will perhaps 
recall many others. But these illustrate the 
great purpose and the rightful result of our 
teaching in the Word of God. Why should 
it be thought a thing incredible, that God 



46 HOPEFUL RESULTS. 

should do this for our children ? Bather, 
why should we not expect it, labor for it ; an- 
ticipate it, as the natural, practical result ? 
This blessed result may come in a variety 
of manifestations, not always suddenly, not 
always immediately, not always with much 
observation. Sometimes after long trying 
of faith, and prayer, and patience. Some- 
times .after the actual connection of the 
teacher and the scholar has been sundered. 
But its possibility, its likelihood, its cer- 
tainty in God's own time and way, leads us 
to pray, and labor, and teach, in the hope of 
this one result. The purpose and expectation 
give new energy and life to all our efforts. 
The plan of instruction thus designed, mingles 
a precious influence with all our words and 
thoughts. Solemn, tender, affectionate, sin- 
cere — our children feel and see that we are so. 
Their attention is arrested. Their thoughts 
are awakened. Their minds are all alive. Ah, 
how blessed is such a sight, and such an ope- 
ration ! How full of joy and pleasure the 
work so imbued and sanctified becomes ! And 



RESULTS. 47 

how much every pastor loses who is not in it, 
and alive to it, and earnest for it, as one not 
only of the great but of the greatest interests 
of his ministry and office, as a shepherd of the 
flock, and an embassador for Christ. t 




V. 



LATER RESULTS. — TWO DIFFERENT CASES. — DYING CHILDREN. 
— LOVE OF CHILDREN FOR SUNDAY-SCHOOL. — EFFECTS ON 
FAMILIES. — HOME TEACHING. 

)HE advantages which we may antici- 
pate from our Sunday-schools are by 
no means exhausted in the one idea of 
conversion. Assuredly the salvation 
of our children is our great cardinal 
purpose. But in the attainment of this, we 
also attain many other important and blessed 
results in detail. And even if we fail in this, 
we have still many very precious facts of actual 
gain. When we speak of conversion in any 
case as connected with means to be employed 
by men ; we must not forget the sovereignty of 
grace and the right of God to do what He will 
with His own. It may be that the most earn- 
est and faithful teacher may be disappointed — 
may experience that hope long deferred which 



LATER RESULTS. 49 

maketh the heart sick. We must not allow 
ourselves to confine the attainment of this re- 
sult to the limited time of Sunday-school 
teaching. The incident related in one of my 
former letters may illustrate a blessing coming 
long after the day of teaching has passed, and 
after the teacher's heart had felt, and even for- 
gotten, all the despondency of the disappoint- 
ment. Many cases have been under my notice 
of the blessing upon faithful teaching long 
postponed, and yet at last, even in maturity, 
crowning the work. And I have no doubt a 
very large proportion of all the conversions we 
see in the Church might be traced, if we knew 
all the facts, to the Scriptural knowledge laid 
. up in the youthful mind by faithful teaching. 
The incorruptible seed of the Word may lie 
beneath the ground through a long winter of 
hopeless indifference and crime, and yet furnish 
the inestimable instrument of divine power, 
when the moment comes that God shall merci- 
fully speak it into life and growth. And this 
laying up of knowledge for the future quick- 
ening work of the Spirit is a most important 



50 TWO DIFFERENT CASES. 

benefit which faithful teaching confers. The 
certainty of this may lead a praying, anxious 
teacher to have long patience, doubting not 
that in due season he shall reap if he faint not. 
Two young persons once sought my pastoral 
counsel in much the same circumstances, and 
about the same time. They were both young 
men, who had led a vain and wasteful life — 
living in pleasure, and dead while they lived. 
The one had been the child of early faithful 
Christian teaching. The other had known 
nothing in his childhood but the miserable 
worldliness of a Sabbath-breaking family, and 
an utter neglect of the Word of God. The 
Holy Spirit had now awakened both to per- 
sonal anxiety and religious concern. They 
were deeply affected and manifestly sincere. 
But how different were their experience and 
their future history. The one instantly and 
freely embraced a truth which he had always 
known, and never doubted. It was all he de- 
sired — enough for him. He was fixed in judg- 
ment, actual in conviction, and useful in re- 
sult. The salvation of the Gospel was to him 



TWO DIFFERENT CASES. 51 

a fountain of real and immediate "blessedness, 
and lie delighted to proclaim it. The other 
had no knowledge — was ignorant, skeptical, 
full of mental errors and absurd objections, and 
could never be settled or satisfied in mind or 
established in heart. The "Word of God was 
all unknown to Mm, and he had never been 
trained to receive its authority. Not one 
conversation with him was satisfactory, and 
the toil of leading him was intense. I traced 
them long, and as I have marked the simple, 
cheerful, earnest life of the one — and the way- 
ward, fitful, unhappy course of the other, I 
have but seen in every step of their career the 
benefit and blessedness of that early teaching 
in the Word of God in the Sunday-school, 
which made all the difference in their parallel 
courses. Yet perhaps in this most favored 
case, some praying teacher had often wept in 
disappointment over the apparent want of suc- 
cess of his labor as it passed. 

But apart from these absolute advantages 
of spiritual knowledge, we confer benefits in 
our Sunday-schools of immense value, and to 



52 GRATEFUL CHILDREN. 

be considered secondary only in comparison of 
this first and highest of all blessings to man. 
"We gain the affections of children on the side 
of the Gospel, and its institutions and instruc- 
tion. Everything connected with religion as- 
sumes an attractive and agreeable aspect, and 
approaches them under a new and most sub- 
duing form. The love and kindness of a faith- 
ful teacher kindle a glow of personal affection 
and tenderness, sometimes hardly second to 
any other. To be the object of constant affec- 
tionate approach and address — to hear the lan- 
guage of tenderness and friendly salutation 
only and always, awakens a living and often 
an entirely new spirit in a youthful mind. 
How often have I seen the most obdurate-look- 
ing boy quietly yielding, like melting snow, to 
such an influence, till he awoke to the real 
feeling for the first time in his life, that he 
was truly loved by somebody, and truly loved 
somebody in return. How often have I. known 
a dying child exclaim, " Oh send for my 
teacher ; I want to see my teacher/' — and this 
in repeated cases of even infant scholars, sup- 



CHILDREN'S LOVE FOR SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 53 

posed too young to have derived deep and last- 
ing impressions from this relation. Many 
illustrations in facts occurring, rise up to my 
mind in demonstration of this influence and 
result, so valuable, that I should be ready to 
say they alone were worth all the effort and 
toil which the school had cost. So blessed is 
this influence of love on the human heart, that 
its worth as a refining power can not be overes- 
timated. A Sunday-school teacher has an in- 
strument of vast usefulness in this personal 
relation, the effect of which, properly directed 
and improved, it would be vain to calculate. 

The affections of children are equally gath- 
ered around the Sabbath, the Church, the 
Word of God, and the pastor also, if he sin- 
cerely throw himself into the work, and minis- 
ter to its prosperity. The Sabbath, no longer 
a weariness, becomes to the mind of youth the 
most attractive of all days. It is a day of en- 
joyment and pleasure. "Oh how I love to 
have the Sabbath come/' said a plain little 
child to me, " it is so pleasant — and I love my 
school so much/' " The happiest hours of my 
5* 



54 CHILDREN'S LOVE FOR SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 

whole week to me, are those I spend in the 
Sunday-school/' said another of an elder class. 
What scores of little ones have I known com- 
ing in the cold winter mornings, with no break- 
fast, because their families were not up, and 
they could not be satisfied to wait and lose 
their school. " How came you here so soon ?" 
said I to two little girls of a rich and self-in- 
dulgent household, who on a winter's morning 
had come a great distance, and were the first 
in the room. " Oh w r e love to come, and we 
got up very early, and came without our break- 
fast, that we might not be late." " Freddy/' 
said I to a little boy, "have you had your 
breakfast to-day ?" " No, sir, but I do not 
mind that ; I had much rather be at school." 
Now, I say it is all but an infinite blessing, 
thus to attract the youthful affections around 
the Sabbath and the study of the Word of 
God. Public worship and the privileges con- 
nected with the sanctuary are thus imbedded 
in the youthful habits and tastes. A direction 
and current are given to the thoughts and as- 
sociations, which go far to take all stumbling- 



EFFECTS ON FAMILIES. 55 

blocks out of the Lord's way, and to make 
ready a people prepared for the Lord. The 
ministry become objects of deep and abiding 
affection, if the pastor enters into the work. 
The hearts of children are entwined around 
him, as a well known minister to their joys. 
His voice is familiar. His words are effective. 
His memory is precious to them. Upon this 
particular point, however, I shall not enlarge 
more at present. But what a hold, what a 
vantage-ground, have we gained, if we can 
thus make all the arrangements and institu- 
tions of religion objects of pleasant and at- 
tractive associations in youthful minds ! We 
give a happy youth, and we prepare for a 
happy maturity. "We minister in a most 
effectual manner for the future work of the 
Spirit, by clothing all the appointed instru- 
ments of that work with only pleasurable 
associations. 

Now, teachers can trace this influence and 
its effects in every Sunday-school in our land, 
in which the Word of God is simply and faith- 
fully taught. And it is an influence only to 



56 HOME TEACHING. 

be gained in Sunday-schools. Domestic relig- 
ious teaching can never confer these agreeable 
associations to the church, the pastor, or the 
Sabbath. On the contrary, the most earnest 
of Christian parents have always found the 
Sabbath family work a hard work — and the 
Sabbath family teaching a wearying teaching. 
Well do we, who passed our youth with only 
the teachings of a Christian home, realize this. 
And while memory blesses and consecrates 
those venerable and beloved forms of parents 
long departed, who were serious, earnest, con- 
scientious, prayerful — yet the remembrance of 
our Sabbaths, with nothing to call out youth- 
ful affection, or awaken youthful earnestness, 
or enlist youthful waywardness, or to turn our 
desires to pastors whom we never. knew r , or to 
worship which we could not understand, is, 
after all, far from a green spot in the recollec- 
tions of youth. There are needed, for the best 
instructed, all the additional facts of provision 
which our Sunday-schools have given us — not 
to supplant, but to supplement domestic teach- 
ing, and the care and nurture of a Christian 



HOME TEACHING. . 57 

home. And the wisest Christian parents now 
fully understand this. The attempt to create 
a rivalry or antagonism between parental do- 
mestic teaching and the teaching of the Sun- 
day-school, is evidence to us only of ignorance 
of the subject. The one may give the advan- 
tages of solitary religious teaching. The other 
alone engrafts upon this, and adds to this the 
social benefits and opportunities of pleasant 
religious relations and religious influences in 
association. Accordingly, the perfect scheme 
and the perfect operation are only to be found 
in the combination of tha two. I have had 
the contrast in families equally under my pas- 
toral care. And I have sadly felt the impos- 
sibility of gaining the affection of children 
whom I had with me in no other relation than 
the family. Many families have I seen who 
were fixed in the sentiment, that the Sunday- 
school was not needful for their children, and 
that even greater benefits would be lost by 
sending them thither. The simple result has 
been, that these children, though in some cases 



58 HOME TEACHING. 

belonging to Christian parents, and, I believe., 
conscientiously instructed at home, have grown 
up free from any influence of mine, or of the 
ministry, or of desire therefor, and, as a rule, 
voluntary strangers in maturity, to the bless- 
ings of a day and a Church which they had 
never been accustomed to love in their youth. 
I have mourned over this error, in occasional 
determinations, with exceeding sorrow — long- 
ing to see every child and youth in the Church 
in actual, constant connection w r ith blessings 
which I have been perfectly convinced could 
elsewhere never be supplied. I would en- 
treat Christian parents to feel and to con- 
sider rightly upon this subject ; and, w T hile in 
their prayers and efforts at home, and in secret, 
they seek for the highest spiritual welfare of 
their children, to perceive and acknowledge 
how blessed and valuable is that helpful agency 
w T hich the good providence of God has prepared 
for their aid and success in the Sunday-school. 
Here are advantages in which they are vitally 
interested. Let them adopt them, and seek 



HOME TEACHING. 59 

a divine blessing upon them, for their own 
households, rejoicing in their connection with 
churches and ministers, where such faithful 
teaching is arranged, and privileges so precious 
for youth are prepared. 




VI. 

REPINING. — ELEVATING INFLUENCE. — A PROFESSOR IN COL- 
LEGE. — A FEMALE PRINCIPAL. — THE POOR CHILDREN. — 
MISSIONARY KNOWLEDGE. — CONTRIBUTIONS. 

)HE incidental advantages of Sunday- 
schools, which occupied my last letter, 
are a very interesting subject to me. I 
can not substitute them in my mind 
as a satisfactory result in the place of 
real conversion, an actual living for Christ by 
the teaching and power of the Holy Spirit. 
But I can not bring myself to undervalue them, 
even as an object, much less as an instrument 
of great value toward the attainment of our 
ultimate and desired end. It is everything 
with me to attract the affections, and engage 
the thoughts and efforts of our children with 
religious interests and teaching. A teacher 
who can do this may be a vast instrument of 
abiding benefit. A teacher who can not, will 



ELEVATING INFLUENCE. 61 

accomplish but little, however earnest and se- 
rious he may be. Accordingly, I set a high 
value upon these contingent benefits, and de- 
light to enumerate them as I see them con- 
stantly arising in connection with our schools. 
In addition to those of which I have al- 
ready spoken, the refinement of manners, 
tastes, and character which arises from our 
Sunday-school system and instruction, is a 
most precious benefit. I remember that Dr. 
D wight does .not hesitate to enumerate among 
the benefits flowing from the Sabbath, the re- 
finement of habit and character which comes 
from the habitual weekly cleanliness and dress 
of the people upon that day. This thought 
has been always impressed upon me in connec- 
tion with our Sunday-schools, as particularly 
valuable. If education in our public and com- 
mon schools constantly awakens dormant char- 
acter and powers — as we well know — the addi- 
tional influence of the great subject of teach- 
ing, of the freeness and kindness of the man- 
ner of teaching, of the instinctive regard to the 
holiness of the day — of the religious worship in 



62 A PROFESSOR IN COLLEGE. 

praise and prayer connected with it — and of all 
the circumstances of order and cleanliness in 
dress and habit which are especially required 
and seen on the Sabbath, give to our Sunday- 
schools an immense preponderance over all 
others in this relation. I have seen so much 
of this effect, and such power exercised by 
these schools in thus elevating and refining the 
poor, that I could fill many letters with in- 
stances illustrating the fact. Our missionary 
and pastoral biographies are full of these tro- 
phies of Divine grace, exhibiting this taking 
of children from the very poorest of the people, 
to make them princes in the Church of God in 
all lands — noble and commanding intellects 
that but for the first opening to daylight which 
the Sunday-school furnished, might have re- 
mained for ever hidden and unknown. 

In one of our large public institutions is an 
accomplished professor of languages who came 
a poor boy to my school. His parents had no 
means of advancing him. He had displayed 
no particular taste for attainment. His asso- 
ciations had been far down below the prospect 



A FEMALE PRINCIPAL. 63 

of any possible elevation. The Sunday-school 
brought out his hidden fire, and stirred up the 
gift that was in him ; excited the desire for an 
education ; led him to give himself and his ed- 
ucation to God. He struggled through his 
youth with the noble purpose before him. He 
found friends in his Sunday-school connec- 
tion to sustain him. He graduated with the 
highest collegiate honors. He was able to ed- 
ucate and exalt his whole family. Few who 
now know and admire him, have the least idea 
where was found the spark of that brilliant ex- 
hibition. Yet it was the Sunday-school which 
took him out of the dust, and inspired him 
-with all his early thoughts and plans. And 
he has been a faithful teacher in this work 
through all his manhood since. 

A little girl of ten years old, perhaps, found 
her way as one of our scholars. She lived as 
" a little maid/' like the one that waited on 
Naaman's wife, in a rich but careless family, 
who went to no church and kept no Sabbath. 
In the few succeeding weeks after she came 
among us, she brought with her one and an- 



64 A FEMALE PRINCIPAL. 

other of the children of the household, till she 
succeeded in attracting every child in the fam- 
ily to the school. The father and mother fol- 
lowed, and took a pew in the church. The 
final result was the adding to our communion 
both parents and children, as one of the hap- 
piest and most faithful families I have known. 
The little girl was so excited and taught in the 
Sunday-school Jhat she longed for a thorough ' 
education. She was permitted by the family 
to attend the public school. She rose to be an 
assistant and a principal teacher. A distant 
town, about organizing a new public female 
school of a higher order, sent to the trustees of 
these public schools for a teacher thoroughly 
qualified to take this important post. They 
■unanimously recommended our kittle raaid," 
and she was appointed. She has since been at 
the head of another more important institution, 
and has now educated hundreds of young la- 
dies, who were never called to toil, nor knew 
the pressure of want. I could give many par- 
ticulars of her remarkable course. But it was 
the Sunday-school that elevated and refined 



THE POOR CHILDREN. '65 

her, in character, desires, and plans. Appar- 
ently, but for the opening which, was presented 
there, she might have spent her weary life -in 
the mere service of the kitchen. 

Who can undervalue such influences and re- 
sults as these ? Such instances, both male 
and female, might be multiplied from my own 
observation to an indefinite extent. Probably 
' every Sunday-school and pastor could adduce 
parallel illustrations. They are the legitimate 
results of our work. They flow in the natural 
process of our plan and growth. I have some 
living instances now around me equally re- 
markable. . I almost doubt whether any of our 
scholars entirely lose, or fail to gain, this re- 
fining influence of our schools in some degree. 
The mingling of the rich, and poor produces a 
blessed equalizing influence upon both. A vis- 
itor to my school once said to me, " You seem 
to have no poor children here/' I answered, 
" Nearly half of the children present are entirely 
poor/' He looked at a class of girls who were 
near us, and expressed his doubts. I said, u See 
those two seated first on the bench. One of 

6* 



66 MISSIONARY KNOWLEDGE. 

them is the daughter of a man of large wealth, 
the other the child of a poor widow who sup- 
ports her family with her needle." "I see no 
difference between them/' was his reply. Such 
was the aspect. And such is the elevating and 
refining power of our schools when made at- 
tractive and effective. 

Another very important result of our work 
is the giving of religious information and be- 
nevolent purposes and habits. The missionary 
world is habitually spread out before them. 
The influence and history of Christian missions 
is now almost an inseparable part of the Sun- 
day-school work. They are trained to consider 
this great subject, and to feel a lively interest 
in it. Thus not only are the missionary ranks 
supplied from the Sunday-schools, but all our 
benevolent operations find their laborers there, 
and the funds for all these works are thus hab- 
itually and freely raised. This whole depart- 
ment of interest and information has arisen in 
the time of us who are old. But what a work 
it is. Our children have grown up in the midst 
of the greatest triumphs of the Gospel, and are 



CONTRIBUTIONS. 67 

to a great degree familiar with them. They 
love to hear of them. They love to contribute 
to them. They are coming into the action of 
life, a well-informed army of soldiers for the 
Lord — " bayonets that think/' as Kossuth 
called his revolutionary soldiers. Their views, 
expectations, and plans, are all arranged on a 
new and higher scale than has governed with 
those who have gone before them. The future 
victories of the Gospel will all be the victories 
of the Sunday-school. There were the men 
and women drilled and taught who " shall in- 
herit the earth." The habit of missionary col- 
lections on every Sunday is a very important 
element of this department of influence. 
These even in themselves will amount to 
much. In the past ten years the missionary 
contributions of the Sunday-schools of St. 
George's have amounted to over Twenty 
Thousand dollars, collected in the schools, and 
by and from the children and teachers. These 
have erected a large stone church in Monrovia 
in Africa, which they are now finishing, and a 
very fine and commodious mission chapel in 



68 CONTRIBUTIONS. 

their own district of this city, which is finished 
and occupied, and has been highly successful. 
The children thus see the result of their labors. 
They are animated with new zeal and interest 
in the work. They gain new power and new 
tastes and habits as they go on in this work of 
benevolence from year to year. And the 
amount of money they collect is the smallest 
item of advantage in this one part of the ope- 
ration. With what hope may we look forward 
to the influence and labors in the Church, of 
children so brought up and so habituated, to 
attempt large things, and to expect large things, 
for their Saviour and their fellow-men. I would 
encourage, therefore, all who are ready to work 
in this great cause, with the hope and anima- 
tion which these facts and considerations may 
impart. I speak of all these things as advan- 
tages which we have a right to expect from our 
Sunday-schools, and, therefore, as ends and ob- 
jects which in their several measure and rela- 
tion we may and ought to pursue. Perhaps on 
this one point I have said enough. It has only 
suggested, however, much more which I am 
compelled to omit. 



VII. 

FUTURE BENEFITS. — PRESENT ACTUAL GAINS. — OBLIGATIONS 
OF PASTORS. 

HOPE you will not think that I have ar- 
rayed an extravagant view of the advan- 
tages of our Sunday-schools to the chil- 
dren engaged in them. I am perfectly 
sure that I have but stated that which 
every well-conducted school and every 
faithful teacher in our land can more or less 
certify by their own observation and history. 
As a result of my experience and observation 
the exhibition is far within the line of truthful 
application, in the variety of incidents and in- 
stances with which I might substantiate it. 
But it is varied and adequate, sufficiently for 
all my present purpose. And in contemplat- 
ing this area of thought, I am ready to ask, 
Can there be a cause, or an instrument o£ 
blessing, in the Church of God, of more real 



70 



FUTURE GAINS. 



and vital importance to its prosperity ? Has 
the divine Providence given us a power or an 
opportunity more adapted by His blessing to 
glorify the Saviour's name, and to gather souls 
in a spiritual fellowship and devotion to Him ? 
The living power of the Church is to be per- 
petuated in its living posterity. The genera- 
tions to come are to serve and bless the Lord 
— in the extending of their power, and in the 
enlarging of their capacity for the work of 
Christ upon the earth. We do not doubt that 
periods are rapidly approaching of the history 
of the Church of Christ, which are to be dis- 
tinguished by a zeal for truth, a love for Jesus, 
and a laborious devotion to the best interests 
of men, far beyond anything that we have seen 
— perhaps that any Christians have yet ever 
seen — of the glory, fullness, and power of the 
Gospel. In anticipation of these days of vic- 
tory, what is so important as the conversion 
and Christian training of the young — the im- 
buing them with a deep experience of the 
power, and with large views of the promises 
and prospects of the Gospel ? Not merely 



FUTURE GAINS. 71 

bringing them personally, actually to Christ, 
but also preparing them in the best and most 
effectual way to work for Christ, in the gath- 
ering in of His great harvest of glory in the 
salvation of men. Certainly the Church which 
can be most effectually successful in this real 
Christian training of the children belonging to 
them, is the one mosF truly preparing to meet 
their God, and to work for Him as a willing 
people in the day of His power. And how is 
this thorough Christian training to be accom- 
plished upon any other plan than bur Sunday- 
school arrangement ? I think I have suffi- 
ciently illustrated this point to assume it, and 
leave it as indubitable. There is no rival op- 
eration. There is no comparable instrument. 
There is no agency to take the place of this 
great work even in the most partial degree. 
And if one could imagine the whole effort to 
be relinquished, and every Sunday-school to be 
finally closed and scattered on a given day, with 
all the aids and publications connected with 
them to be thrown away, we can not conceive 
a greater disaster to the Church, a greater tri- 



72 PRESENT ACTUAL GAINS. 

umph of Satan, or a greater overthrow of the 
hope of a world redeemed. 

The benefits of this work we are already 
reaping in the whole display of a Saviour's tri- 
umphs in the world. The present generation 
of youthful pastors and missionaries, and of 
male and female teachers and laborers, are 
chiefly the children of Sunday-school instruc- 
tion. And, as the whole practical efficiency 
of the Church is yearly enlarging, and mission- 
aries at home and abroad are hastening to 
publish upon the mountains the glad tidings 
of a reigning Saviour, we discover in this 
whole work but the precious fruit, shaking 
like Lebanon, of that which was thus scattered 
as a handful of corn, in the early efforts of the 
first faithful laborers in this cause. And when 
you contemplate the usefulness of many of 
these youthful servants of the Lord, some of 
whom have finished their day, and others of 
whom are still in the field, all of whom have 
been shining examples of the power and skill 
which this blessed training gave— and then 
^all to mind the three millions of children in 



PRESENT ACTUAL GAINS. 73 

our Churches in this country, now under all 
the blessed influence of the same preparation 
for Christ and His service, you can not resist 
the thought, that nothing can be more import- 
ant for the Church of God than the wise and 
faithful maintenance of this whole schem£, 
upon the largest possible field, and with the 
utmost possible excellence of management. 
Are there in this country five hundred thou- 
sand other Christians, of equal usefulness and 
worth with the five hundred thousand Sunday- 
school teachers whom God is employing and 
blessing on every Sabbath ? Their whole em- 
ployment in this relation, and in the degree 
in which it is faithfully carried out — is the 
highest gift of benevolence to our land and to 
our race. It is a benevolence which continu- 
ally enlarges itself in the heart that owns and 
exercises it, which accomplishes the most 
valued results for the souls upon whom it 
directly acts, and which reproduces itself in 
countless other agents and agencies, running 
on through all ages, and intertwining with all 
works of love, in the whole extent and history 



74 OBLIGATIONS OF PASTORS. 

•of the future Church. And I would hail and 
welcome, my beloved brethren and sisters, the 
Sunday-school teachers of our country with 
the salutation of cordial affection and sincere 
respect. Beloved, you are the Lord's instru- 
ments of untold benefits to your fellow-men. 
Ages shall rise up and call you blessed. Be 
faithful unto death, — work on cheerfully and 
earnestly, and with a single mind ; and the 
Grocl of glory will endow you with eternal 
blessing. Be not wearied with apparent want of 
success, nor faint under the depression of hope 
deferred. Tou serve a faithful Master. You 
labor in a cause that is purely good and must 
surely triumph. Tou shall reap your harvest 
of grace and glory in due season, if you faint 
not. 

But with the survey of this whole field of 
undeniable advantages accruing from our 
schools, what ought, what can our Churches 
do, but encourage, adopt, and sustain the 
work with the utmost devotion, generosity, 
and zeal ? Christian pastors can not neglect 
this subject, and be useful, safe, or guiltless. 






OBLIGATIONS OF PASTOKS. 75 

God has committed to His ministers the feed- 
ing of the lambs, as of the sheep. The Son 
of God made special manifestations of His 
love, His peculiar love, for the little ones of 
His flock. And that can not he a ministry 
faithful to God, or a ministry after the pat- 
tern of Jesus, which neglects them. A Christ- 
loving pastor is a child-loving pastor. He who 
as a babe has been taught of Jesus, delights to 
be a teacher of babes for Jesus' sake. A lov- 
ing minister's heart can not withhold himself 
from this most attractive and precious portion 
of all his labors. And I am persuaded that 
the more the ministers of the Lord look at 
this subject in all its bearings and influences, 
the more earnestly will they be drawn to a per- 
sonal engagement therein. Christian Churches 
can not be safely indifferent or inattentive to 
these important claims. The children of every 
family, whether rich or poor, need the training 
of the Sunday-school, and can gain the bless- 
ings which it offers nowhere else. It should 
be a fixed purpose and effort in every Church 
that the whole generation of its youth should 



76 OBLIGATIONS OF THE CHURCH. 

be thus taught and trained. There the rich 
and poor should meet together in the enjoy- 
ment of that elevating and refining influence 
which proceeds alone from Him who is " the 
Maker of them all." The best intellects and 
hearts of the Church of God should be given 
to this work. The teaching should not be 
confined to the young. Elder Christians, of 
long experience and mature grace, of com- 
manding position and personal influence, 
should enlist themselves in the actual work — 
and renew their energies and their youth in 
the attractive labor to which it invites. The 
provision for the schools should bring out the 
unsparing liberality of the Church. Nothing 
that can promote the comfort, enlarge the 
usefulness, or adorn and render ^attractive the 
method of operation, within the power of the 
members of any Church, should be withheld. 
The Sunday-school is worthy of the first place 
in the affections and consideration of every 
Church. The advantages which it repays 
make it an investment of incalculable worth. 
In no way can the Churches of the Lord so 



OBLIGATIONS OF THE CHURCH. 77 

surely rise and shine, so certainly extend and 
prosper, so largely bless and "be blessed, as in 
the constant, earnest, and faithful cultivation 
of their Sunday-schools. They are the Church 
of the children — the fold for the lambs — the 
feeding-place for the kids beside the shepherds' 
tents. As true religion revives, the Lord makes 
their peculiar claims to be understood and val- 
ued. And as their claims are thus regarded 
and met, will true religion revive in the most 
effective and abiding form, and children and 
teachers, and pastors and Christians, awake to 
perceive and acknowledge, with new gratitude, 
the advantages and blessings which, under 
God's gracious blessing, flow from the Sun- 
day-schools upon every one engaged therein. 
7* 



vin. 

AGENCY. — TEACHERS. — YALUE. — USEFULNESS. — QUALIFICA- 
TIONS. — TRUE PIETY. 

PASS from a consideration of the advan- 
tages to be derived from Sunday-schools, 
to a contemplation of the agency to be 
employed. The value of the proposed 
result makes the importance of the 
agency designed to produce it still the greater. 
The discriminate character of the results which 
we desire must also influence our selection of 
an agency entirely appropriate to their attain- 
ment. In the subject before us, the first ele- 
ment of the agency is the personal character of 
the Teacher. A more important influence, or 
one more actually effective upon the character 
of the Church, can not be found, apart from 
the personal work of the divinely appointed 
ministry of the Gospel, than the organized and 
active body of Sunday-school teachers. They 






TEACHERS. 79 

have advantages of influence which are pecu- 
liarly their own. The small number of their 
hearers — their acknowledged personal relation 
as teachers — the direct individual and mutual 
contact and connection of this relation — the 
quiet and secured attention — the secluded place 
and hour for their work — the open and eager 
minds of the young disciples whom they in- 
struct — the facility of comprehension and the 
freedom of impression — the solemnizing, sub- 
duing, and exciting influence of the accom- 
panying prayer and praise of the school uni*- 
ted — all combine to give them an opportunity 
of blessing and saving a generation for Christ, 
which angels might covet, and over the blessed 
results of which angels will rejoice. As I 
habitually walk around among the classes, 
and sometimes have an opportunity to take 
the place of an absent teacher, and thus ob- 
serve and test, in turn, the blessedness of open- 
ing the absorbing truths of salvation to such 
open and grateful minds, I gain a constantly 
enlarging conception of the privileges and 
blessings of the work. No employment seems 



80 TEACHERS. 

to me so attractive — and no occupation so 
sure to bring its ample reward. That blessed 
hour of free and unrestrained conversation, in 
the simplest terms upon the highest subjects, 
only appears too short for the privilege and 
the occupation which are necessarily confined 
to it. And in the supposition that every ele- 
ment involved in this occupation is of a fair 
and full measure of adaptation to its success- 
ful accomplishment, I can conceive of no in- 
fluence upon human society at all to be com- 
pared in efficacy and actual power with the 
scheme of operation which is thus considered. 
I can not speak or think of this agency as ever 
rivaling, or really separable from, the appointed 
ministry. The teachers of my schools seem 
to me to be but parts of myself. Like the fin- 
gers of one of those beautiful power-presses, 
they take up the very pages which I desire to 
impress, and smoothly and quietly spread them 
out before me, prepared to receive the blessed 
communications from on high which I long to 
stamp on their minds and hearts for ever. 
When one surveys this tranquil but powerful 



VALUE. 81 

operation, it is vain to compare the parts with 
each other in their relative importance. They 
must all be there, all proportionate, all adapted, 
all in order ; and then the unseen, mysterious 
power applied, with its sure but imponderable 
energy, the result comes out, the happiness 
and the triumph of all. And who that stands 
to contemplate the glowing regularity and 
mysterious beauty of this work, would desire 
to go back to the single hand-press of the in- 
dividual laborer, toiling, with far greater weari- 
ness, to accomplish but a small portion of the 
result ? That in actual practice we really find 
a fair exhibition of these appropriate elements 
I have no power to deny. The great propor- 
tion of teachers are doubtless useful and faith- 
ful. And the very existence and constant en- 
largement of the operation on all sides and in 
every Church, while every element is so volun- 
tary and unconstrained, can not but show the 
adaptation of the actual agency, and the in- 
terest of youthful minds therein. The rule of 
the history is flourishing success. The excep- 
tions are the failing and drooping schools, and 



82 USEFULNESS. 

inattentive and careless attendants. Yet there 
is no school in which there are not found very 
great differences, both in the passing manifes- 
tation, and in the actual results, among the 
various classes and teachers. Every school 
will furnish some specimens of what may be 
called the highest exemplification of the sys- 
tem ; some classes always present, always 
•punctual, always interested, always active ; 
some teachers always there, always prepared, 
always attractive, always effectual ; and there- 
fore some fruits of the highest and most blessed 
character always growing. That this differ- 
ence will be found in some degree among the 
children I should not deny. But this can be 
only occasional and individual. There are 
teachers, too, who are found especially adapted 
to some particular classes of children. But 
the differences are just as great between the in- 
dividual children of the same general class, as 
between the social classes themselves. And 
there are some teachers who are always instru- 
ments of blessing, and I might almost say a 
blessing to all. How dear and precious such 



QUALIFICATIONS. 83 

servants of the Lord are to a pastor's heart, 
and to the welfare of the Church, who can 
fairly tell ? But why should not all be such ? 
There may be, and doubtless there is, difference 
of gifts. But are there any gifts calculated 
for usefulness in the Sunday-school that every 
teacher may not in a fair measure and degree 
acquire ? Are there any that every Christian 
may not have and exercise in some appropriate 
relation with entire success ? I think not. 
And therefore while I speak upon this subject, 
I must deal with it, not as involving only the 
characteristics of the poet, natural and not to 
be attained, but as the qualifications of the 
faithful practical servant, whose best services 
are the improvements of his constant oppor- 
tunities, and whose brightest graces are the 
light of a lamp which, though grace has started 
with its divine spark, faithful watching and 
care keep in its abiding and useful glow. 

Of all qualifications in a successful teacher, 
real and experimental piety is by far the most 
important. A teacher in a Sunday-school ac- 
tually and professedly unconverted, seems an 



84 QUALIFICATIONS. 

anomaly simply absurd. I should hardly 
waste a moment in discussing such a point. 
" In this the children of God are manifest and 
the children of the devil/' If there are but 
these two classes on earth ; in a spiritual divi- 
sion, as I certainly can not doubt, I can hardly 
imagine the propriety of employing one of 
either class to be a teacher in the ways of the 
other. There surely may be true piety in its 
germ in the heart, where as yet no open pro- 
fession of it has been made in appointed or- 
dinances of separation. And a wise considera- 
tion by the appointing power will take this 
possible fact into consideration in the present 
contingency. Perhaps the very desire to teach 
others the ways of Christ may be one of the 
first and most encouraging evidences of the 
reality of this spiritual life within, however 
feeble and doubtful it may appear. I would 
not, therefore, quench the smoking flax, 01 
break the bruised reed : nor on any account 
discourage one of the Lord's little ones in their 
desires to be useful. But it is a case which re- 
quires vast caution, and faithful and tender 



TRUE PIETY. * 85 

judgment. The interest to be confided is 
great. The possible evils may be greater. 
And all the circumstances which are individ- 
ual and personal must be taken into account. 
But the governing principle must be laid down, 
that a teacher of others to be the children of 
God, should himself be His child ; a guardian 
and guide of the little children of the Saviour's 
household ought not to be a stranger and for- 
eigner, having no hope, and without God in 
the world, but a fellow-citizen with the saints, 
and of the household of God. True piety is 
the growth and fruit of ^a converted heart — an 
experience of the Saviour's forgiving love — a 
real consecration of the soul, as bought with a 
price, to Him who has redeemed and owns it. 
It is a state in which old things have passed 
away, and all things in their principles, and in 
their measure and degree of results, have be- 
come new. A Sunday-school teacher must be 
thus taught and born of God, so that the di- 
vine subjects of teaching shall not be the mere 
barren acquisitions of the hearing of the ear, 
but the real subjects of the experience and en- 



86 TRUE PIETY. 

joyment of the heart. I am exceedingly earn- 
est to press this point. It is the very starting- 
point in this new line of view. Every thing 
else will depend upon it, and presuppose it. 
We can not, therefore, pass it with indifference 
or inattention. What is Sunday-school teach- 
ing but a ministry for God ? In the very na- 
ture of the employment, it is a work for Chris- 
tians, and for them alone. The idea is some- 
times suggested, that getting some vain and 
irreligious persons to teach others, may be the 
means of leading them to learn themselves. 
This would seem toonvicked to be merely ab- 
surd, if applied to the ministry of the Gospel. 
But though more manageable and more easily 
remedied, it is equally incongruous in the pres- 
ent case. We can not afford to^ present our 
children as merely demonstrative subjects. 
Their interests and welfare are the things for 
which we seek. And in securing an agency 
for the blessing, the Lord must first call to His 
service, and then instruct and prepare for its 
adequate fulfillment. Our teachers must be 
in choice, and hearts, and life the children and 
servants of the living God. 



IX. 

TEACHERS. — RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE. — SCRIPTURAL KNOWL- 
EDGE. — SPECIAL PREPARATION. — LOYE FOR SOULS. — EF- 
FORTS FOR SALVATION. 

^ HAVE spoken of piety as an essential 
qualification in a Sunday-school teacher. 
But the thought should be carried be- 
yond the mere possession of religious 
character. For such a work there needs 
the deepest experience and intelligence 
of religious truth. It is really a ministry for 
souls in eternal things, and at a period of life 
when the impressions received are very per- 
manent and effectual. False principles then 
inculcated may exercise a baneful influence 
through life. Indeed, it may be found very 
difficult to eradicate them at all. Nothing 
can be more important than to give to a 
youthful mind a perfectly clear and intelligible 
perception of the way of salvation opened in 



88 TEACHERS. 

the Gospel. And though every true Christian 
will understand this ; and may be able to state 
it with a degree of precision — at any rate must 
be personally conscious of its simplicity — yet it 
is by no means the fact that every real Chris- 
tian can adequately and with sufficient simpli- 
city expound it to others. To make it plain 
to a child's mind, even when that mind is really 
spiritually inquiring, is a very important at- 
tainment. It will occupy and will repay the 
ripest experience in grace, and the most intel- 
ligent exercise of wisdom. I have, therefore, 
always longed to see those Christians at work 
in teaching, who were not merely alive to God, 
' but lively for God. We need the mature ser- 
vants to be the guides of the young. And no 
employment is so adapted to invigorate their 
own graces, and to simplify and clear up their 
own views of Divine truth, as this opportunity 
and necessity of expounding the way of the 
Lord to His little ones, and showing them, in 
their own tongue, the wonderful works of God. 
How much the practical imparting of religious 
knowledge enlarges and purifies it in the mind's 



RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE. 89 

own possession Christians in such an occupa- 
tion would soon discover. 

You will see that this whole train of remark 
is founded upon my previous assertion of the 
purpose of Sunday-school teaching — that is, the 
actual conversion of children to God. However 
important theoretical information may be in the 
geography and customs of Scripture history, it 
would be a miserable perversion of our appointed 
work to confine the time and thoughts to this 
outside view. A lesson in Scriptural geography 
alone would be as barren and as inappropriate 
in the Sunday-school as a sermon on the same 
subject in the pulpit. Both the one and the 
other are useless, and derogatory to the posi- 
tion and the demand, unless all the statistical 
information be made the instrument of direct 
introduction to the Saviour's work and the 
sinner's need. And al though we must delight 
to welcome and employ every adjunct which 
enlarged information can bring to illustrate 
and explain the truth, we must be exceedingly 
determined and careful that the incident shall 

not assume the place of the very subject itself, 

8* 



90 SCRIPTURAL KNOWLEDGE. 

and the chaff be selected for the food instead 
of the wheat. A teacher truly alive for God 
will soon and often find an opportunity to 
confer with individual minds, upon the great 
concerns of the Gospel and the sinful soul. 
And it is eminently necessary that teachers 
should realize the importance of a deep relig- 
ious experience, and an habitual exercise of all 
its active traits for the special advantage of 
this work, and for readiness for such occa- 
sions. 

Added to this primary qualification, we may 
% speak, as second in importance, of enlarged 
Scriptural knowledge. Every part of the Sa- 
cred Word should be familiar to a teacher's 
mind. And to the utmost extent of individ- 
ual means and time, the widest preparation 
should be made of attainment from this whole 
field. Here will come in the whole area of 
study in the localities and national customs 
which are connected with the historical teach- 
ing of the Bible. When we began our work, 
this field for study was vastly extensive, and 
widely scattered. But the laborers and prepa- 



SCRIPTURAL KNOWLEDGE. 91 

rations which the process of the work has 
called out ; in the condensed and comprehen- 
sive books prepared upon these various points, 
have so simplified and arranged the study, that 
it involves but little difficulty now for any. 
But this knowledge is only to be acquired by 
study — and in the great multitude of cases, it 
can only be acquired by the actual study of 
the particular lesson. I have had great reason 
to believe there is far too little actual study on 
the appointed lesson by the most of teachers. 
In hurried and extemporaneous work in teach- 
ing I have no confidence. It is as worthless in 
the Sunday-school as in the pulpit. In each 
case it wearies and disgusts the speaker and 
the hearers equally. The Sunday's lesson 
should be the week's study. The reading and 
the thought should be given to it. Ample 
notes should be made of the information at- 
tained. And the teacher should come prepared 
to the utmost possible extent, with information 
on the whole subject, and the ability to answer 
any reasonable question, or to expound any 
natural difficulty which may occur. u Eeading 



92 SPECIAL PREPARATION. 

Hiaketh a full man." And it is delightful to 
witness the work of such an one in teaching. 
The scholars crowd around and hang uj)on his 
words, and the excitement and occupation of 
the mutual interest in the subject of study, 
make the hour seem too short for both. How 
sad a contrast is the aspect of another class 
and teacher, where the little information of 
the teacher has been soon exhausted — and be- 
fore the hour has half gone by, the teacher sits 
with folded hands in idleness, and the children 
are yawning with indifference, or else the Word 
of God is laid aside and some story-book is 
read in its place. We may mournfully think 
of Cowper's words in a similar case : 

" From such apostles, oh ye mitred heads, preserve the Church, 
And lay not careless hands on skulls that can not teach, 
And will not learn." 

The complaint is often made by teachers, 
we can not get our children to study the les- 
son. The interest of the children will always 
be dependent upon the teacher. If the teacher 
provides nothing to say, the children will look 
for nothing to hear. The previous study of 



SPECIAL PREPARATION. . 93 

the one will awaken the desire and study of 
the others. And it would be wholly unnatural 
to expect in the minds of youth a spontaneous 
and continued interest in the great subjects of 
Scriptural study ; with no adequate or appro- 
priate efforts to awaken and maintain it. I 
would entreat teachers to consider the import- 
ance of this study. What a blessing to their 
own souls would be one chapter of sacred 
Scripture thus thoroughly studied and under- 
stood, every week ! What a fund of learning 
and truth would one year's work of this kind 
lay up for them ! And how increasing and 
enlarging would become their power to teach, 
and their own ability to understand the Word 
of Grod ; as years go by of such patient and 
compensating toil. In the increasing religious 
information of individual minds, the character 
and influence of the Church become proportion- 
ably enlarged, and the pulpit may be encour- 
aged and enabled to speak of the deeper things 
of God, and the ministry grow in knowledge 
and in wisdom in imparting it. 

In addition to these qualifications in teach- 



94 LOVE FOR SOULS. 

ers ; we want an active and earnest love for 
souls — a sincere and positive desire for their 
salvation. Love for souls must flow from love 
for Him who bought them. The love of Christ 
must be the constraining power to awaken and 
sustain this feeling. The mind which was in 
Him ; is eminently needful for the Sunday- 
school. We can hardly conceive of true relig- 
ion that is indifferent to this object. But 
there is evidently a vast difference among 
Christians in active feeling concerning it. In 
our teachers we must seek for this spirit — and 
encourage and labor to bring it out. The 
connection in which they are placed is equally 
solemn and interesting. They are the messen- 
gers of Christ to these little ones. They are 
employed to carry His glad tidings to them. 
They may be employed to lead their ransomed 
souls to Him. What element of usefulness is 
more important to them than a real and earn- 
est love for those to whom they minister ? 
It will labor in prayer for them. It will pre- 
sent them individually and by name before the 
Lord ; imploring His blessing. It will direct 



EFFORTS FOR SALVATION. 95 

their whole utterance in actual teaching. It 
will lead to an observation and understanding 
of their individual characters and particular 
temptations. It will visit them in their habi- 
tations — cultivate an affectionate intercourse 
with them — call out their personal confidence 
and grateful regard — and make the teacher 
known to them as their real and beloved 
friend. It will devise many and constant 
ways of interesting and attracting them. It 
will make the gaining them and blessing them 
for Christ a constant and real object of thought 
and effort. It is a blessed spirit, both as an 
instrument in the teacher's hand, and as a 
dweller in the teacher's heart. It must be 
sough t ; watched over, and encouraged by every 
teacher. And coldness or indifference here 
must be felt to be, as it really is, a great and 
dreadful evil — to be guarded against and re- 
pressed in every possible way, and by unceas- 
ing purpose and effort. But piety, deep 
experience in religion, extended Scriptural 
knowledge, and ardent love for souls, vast and 
precious as they are, do not finish a teacher's 
qualifications. We must still pursue this theme. 



X. 



TEACHERS. —THE BEST NEEDED. — MISSIONARY FROM AFRICA. — 
LOVE THE RULE. — BOYS AND GIRLS TAUGHT TOGETHER.—- 
FOOLISH QUARRELS. 

HA YE desired to speak of the proper 
and essential qualifications in a Sunday- 
school teacher, with much moderation of 
expression. Those which we have con- 
sidered have been attributes and attain- 
ments, which however they must vary in in- 
dividual instances, are certainly within the 
reach, in a fair measure, of every real serv- 
ant of the Lord Jesus. Native powers of 
mind, and social opportunities for education, 
will materially vary the degree of their pos- 
session. But there are equal varieties of 
children to be cared for and taught under 
their influence. And with reasonable wisdom 
and discernment in the appropriation of teach- 
ers on the part of the Superintendent, there 



THE BEST NEEDED. 97 

• 

will be found a place for every one, and an 
adapted field for the labors of all. As a rule in 
our experience in this work, I believe the tes- 
timony will be general, that we fail in bringing 
for its accomplishment the best talent and ed- 
ucation in our Churches, and therefore are often 
' compelled to work our great enterprise with in- 
ferior means and instruments, from the very ne- 
cessity of the case. How this difficulty is* to 
be met, but by an outpouring of the Spirit in 
new measure upon our Churches, I can not 
tell. I see around me Christian men and 
women of the highest character and position, 
who have every qualification for a successful 
union with us — so far as education and relig- 
ious attainments go — who still withhold them- 
selves entirely. There seems no love for souls, 
or confidence in the importance of this great 
means of salvation, adequate to overcome their 
personal convenience, or the indolence and self- 
indulgence of their tempers. They do not re- 
alize the great fact that we are really educating 
the Church of God in its coming generations, 
and have the vast responsibility and opportu- 

9 



98 MISSIONARY FROM AFRICA. 

nity of impressing upon those who are to come, 
the great truths and principles of the Gospel — 
that we are therefore starting and supplying 
little streams of blessing, which may even in 
their own time flow down as mighty rivers of 
Divine mercy to mankind. 

What blessings some teachers live to enjoy as 
the divinely bestowed fruits of their work ! A 
beloved missionary from Africa, who has now 
labored for eleven years on that dark shore, has 
just returned among us. He went from all the 
joys and luxuries of this city, in the morning of 
his ministry, to give himself to the Lord for that 
peculiarly self-denying work. He found on his 
present return his early Sunday-school teacher 
still at work in her important trust. This be- 
loved missionary and another clergyman set- 
tled in this city, were two of her boys, when 
she gave herself, as a youth, with peculiar love 
and life to this important work. The youth- 
ful teacher has passed into the maturer age and 
circumstances of life, surrounded with her large 
family cares and calls — and yet she labors on 
with all the attraction of sanctified talent and 



LOVE THE RULE. 99 

loveliness of character, which early blessed, and 
still equally bless the generations of youth 
committed to her. How many there are 
around who might be equally useful, and 
equally happy in usefulness, with far more 
time at their command, could they attain the 
same love for the Saviour and His blessed 
work. This is a point on which I deeply feel, 
and often meditate with great distress. How 
shall I call <put the best and most efficient tal- 
ent in my Church in this cause ? I can not 
doubt that the deficiency is a religious defi- 
ciency. The real defect is the want of living, 
earnest piety and love for Christ — gifts which 
the Holy Ghost can alone impart, and the be- 
stowal of which will be the revival of His work 
in the Church. 

But with the best agents we can find, we 
. must labor still. It is with the Lord to save 
by many or by few. And we too often se^ our 
" calling" to be but the repetition of the Cor- 
inthian experience. The mighty, the noble, 
and the wise refuse the privilege, while God 
adorns and consecrates the weak things of the 



100 LOVE THE RULE. 

world to be mighty through Him, that they 
who glory, may glory in the Lord alone. The 
qualifications of which I speak must, therefore, 
have relation to things as they are. A very 
important addition to those of which I have 
already spoken, will be a really loving heart, 
affectionate and gentle habits — the cultivation 
of an attractive demeanor in relation to the 
children, and to fellow-teachers. This surely 
is a grace within the reach of every one, and is 
equally valuable to its possessor, and to those 
who are to feel its influence. No Christian 
employment more constantly or indispensably 
demands the law of kindness. And no talents 
or gifts can compensate here for a rough or un- 
kind deportment. The law of the Sabbath- 
school must be love. When often asked for 
the constitution and rules of my schools, I 
answer that they are comprised in the four let- 
ters, *L V E. Here is the law— and this the 
only fulfilling of the law, in a Sunday-school. 
I have more than once passed classes under my 
care, when a teacher has called to me to say, 
u Here is a boy or girl that I can do nothing 



LOVE THE RULE. 101 

with ; can you not remove him or her to some 
other class ?" Now, how manifest was the in- 
competence of the teacher under such circum- 
stances. Impatience, want of sympathy and 
tenderness, to say the very least, were at the 
bottom of the whole ; great want of discretion 
in openly announcing the disappointment, 
which was a confession of incompetency to the 
whole class, and extremely injudicious and ir- 
ritating to the child proscribed, was very ap- 
parent. Indifference to the feelings and con- 
venience of fellow-teachers was equally clear. 
In such a case, nothing could be done but to 
remove the child. But I should have felt more 
disposed to remove the teacher, if a greater re- 
sult of evil would not have probably flowed 
from it. A complaining teacher can do no 
good. A fretful, peevish, hasty teacher can do 
no good. If a child is rebellious, let a teacher 
remember what fighters against God the minis- 
try must meet ; and how surely every thing 
will be unavailing in them all for a blessing, 
without a forbearing, patient spirit. A smiling 

genial habit, a cheerful, welcoming countenance 
9* 



102 BOYS AND GIRLS TAUGHT TOGETHER. 

— a morning face radiant with joy in the work 
of the Lord — comes into the school like the 
sunshine of heaven. It is God's own work, 
and God's own mark. I can not but say, " I 
will rejoice and be glad therein." 

To cultivate the influence of this spirit, I 
feel the importance of teaching the tw r o sexes 
in the same room. Indeed, for our smaller 
boys, females are the best teachers. And for 
all, there is a refining and restraining influence 
in the presence and cooperation of both classes 
in the common work. The advantages of this 
arrangement I have very thoroughly proved — 
especially as bearing on the one point of which 
I now speak. Years ago, I walked into a boy's 
school, connected with a church, and taught 
in its basement — where I found a complete 
uproar and mob. A teacher had in some way 
undertaken to compel a boy's submission, who 
found a protector in another teacher — till their 
loud quarrel overwhelmed the school com- 
pletely, and I should be ashamed to record the 
things said and done, which I heard and saw 
myself. The origin I knew not. But the 



FOOLISH QUARRELS. 103 

effect was indisputable. The teachers were 
both respectable gentlemen, but a hasty spirit 
stirred up strife — and there was no soft answer 
to turn away anger. The presence of the 
other sex would have rendered such a scene 
impossible. The influence of the common in- 
struction of both is to instill a sense of pro- 
priety in the roughest — and to awaken and 
cultivate the very spirit of affection and the 
tenderness of manner and deportment of which 
I speak. And I have never seen* the case of 
youthful hos^lity that affectionate treatment 
would not overcome, while some of the rough- 
est specimens have brought out the purest and 
the most precious jewels I have ever had. To 
overcome evil by good ; is the fundamental law 
of useful teaching. To persevere in the deter- 
mination to do this, is the condition of its ac- 
complishment. Do not charge me with dwell- 
ing too much upon this. Nothing can be 
forced in a Sunday-school. And all the other 
qualities being conceded, the whole success of 
the work, and the whole difference of success 
between two teachers in the work, will depend 



104 RIGHT SPIRIT. 

at last on this simple quality of love in the 
heart, love in the manner, love in the voice, 
love in the judgment and estimation, love per- 
severing through all obstacles and difficulties, 
until God has subdued the unruly and trans- 
formed the rebellious by the power of His own 
grace. This love will pray, and wait with 
patience, will forbear and plead with kindness. 
It will be seen and felt in all its manifesta- 
tions. It will make a teacher exceedingly 
dear to the children — and a precious blessing 
to the school. How often do I catch the 
spark from such a face, and such a work, and 
bless God for the consolation which He im- 
parts, from light and life that He has Himself 
kindled around me. 




XI. 



TEACHERS. — PUNCTUALITY. — DIVINE AID. — PRAYER. — OPENING- 
WORSHIP. — PRAYER FOR CHILDREN. — QUIET ATTENTION. 

) NE qualification in our teachers remains 
unnoticed, which must be deemed abso- 
lute and essential. It is punctuality. 
Eegularity of attendance — and accu- 
racy of time. A shiftless, uncertain 
Sunday-school teacher, sometimes pres- 
ent, sometimes absent — sometimes ready, gen- 
erally late, is like a broken tooth, and a smoke 
in the nose. No talents or qualifications be- 
sides, can compensate for the want of fidelity 
in attendance or punctuality in time. Habits 
of order are indispensable in this relation to 
the comfort and to the success of the work 
The estimate of personal responsibility in this 
engagement exhibited by a teacher — the seri- 
ousness with which the obligation is considered 
— the facility with which it is neglected, or 



106 DIVINE AID. 

some other call or obstacle is deemed an ade- 
quate excuse — are to be regarded as no less 
than high, moral traits, or radical moral defi- 
ciencies. Always present, always ready, always 
in time, are fundamental requisitions in a Sun- 
day-school teacher. Nor can any excuse be 
adequate or reasonable, which does not involve 
some obstacle absolutely insuperable. And 
when absence is absolutely unavoidable, then 
a fitting substitute should be sent in the place. 
The Superintendent is most unjustly bur- 
dened, in the compulsion to hunt up impossi- 
ble supplies, or to groan over vacancies which 
can not be filled. 

But suppose the agency thus far considered 
to be adequate and real — and these conditions 
all complied with — we are not then to forget 
that this is one of those great works in which 
the blessing of the Lord alone maketh rich. 
As in the work of the appointed ministry, we 
realize here in all our gains, and in all our dis- 
appointments, that without His power and 
presence we can do nothing. The preparation 
of the heart, and the answer of the tougue, 



PRAYER. ' 107 

are both from Him. The forgetfulness and the 
want of this Divine power, is an habitual 
cause, I fear, of the failure of our hopes and 
plans. The commanding, pervading idea and 
feeling in the Sunday-school should be the 
spirit and habit of prayer— sincere, earnest, 
special prayer. The opening exercises of the 
school should be in a spirit and manifestation 
of real earnestness, in this one great purpose 
of seeking the blessing of Glod. The whole 
character and influence of these opening exer- 
cises of worship, should be such as to awaken 
an interest in the minds of the whole school, a 
consciousness of the solemnity of the occupa- 
tion, a feeling of seriousness in the work to be 
undertaken, and a real union of heart in the 
prayer, and praise, and exhortation, to which 
their attention is called. Every thing in the 
manner of conducting this work becomes im- 
portant. We are dealing with little minds, 
and every little thing which may operate on 
our relations to them is to be considered and 
provided for. The teachers must be punctual, 
and on the spot in time. The children must 



108 • PRAYER. 

be taught to assemble in seriousness and quiet- 
ness. They must be in their places, in readi- 
ness for the opening worship of the school. 
To allow a habit of heedless, desultory coming 
is often to destroy completely the whole bene- 
fit anticipated from the gathering. We can 
not safely permit teachers and children to be 
absent from the worship, or to be tumbling in 
together, in a noisy disturbance of the tran- 
quility and repose of its actual offering, This 
must never be considered a subordinate matter. 
We havje but a .short time for the, whole work 
of the day. The loss of any part of it is im- 
portant. And the idea can not be suffered, 
that the loss of the opening prayer is of less 
consequence than any subsequent portion of 
the privileges of the occasion. So necessary do 
I esteem this quiet and punctual commence- 
ment, that my hope of a blessing fails me if I 
can not obtain it. A few moments' silent 
thought and secret prayer by the teachers and 
children as they come to their places, is a 
blessed opening, and a most encouraging sight. 
It seems to say in its expressive form of utter- 



OPENING WORSHIP. 109 

ance, " We are all here ready before the Lord, 
to hear all things that are commanded of Him/' 
It inspires hopeful anticipations. The Lord 
the Spirit seems to be in the place, and the 
work of the day begins with the dew upon the 
grass. Often have I felt and enjoyed the en- 
couragement thus divinely given. But when I 
see teachers and children gathering carelessly, 
wandering from place to place in the room — 
idly chatting with each other over some out- 
side or worldly subject, a buzz of confusion, 
which, however natural to youth, is hostile to 
all the engagements of the hour and the place, 
my heart has sunk in sadness over the little 
prospect of a blessing on our toil. 

The opening worship should be short, appro- 
priate, and engaging. A hymn of praise 
adapted to the minds of children, animated 
and awakening — a few words of serious exhor- 
tation or address from the Superintendent to 
the teachers and children — a prayer adapted 
also to youthful minds, and expressed in such 
language and sentences as they can perfectly 

comprehend and enjoy — these may all occupy 
10 



110 OPENING WORSHIP. 

ten to fifteen minutes — in no case to be ex- 
tended longer. This commencing work tests 
the skill and tact of the Superintendent. In 
it his manner and voice should be prompt and 
completely audible to all. His own real ear- 
nestness should command instant tranquility 
and attention. If he be truly qualified for his 
post, he will be heard, revered, and loved. 
Perfect order and silence should reign through- 
out while he is thus engaged ; and the whole 
aspect and influence of the employment should 
indicate the presence of the Lord with His 
children, and the sincerity and spiritual char- 
acter and habits of those who are seeking Him. 
For this opening of the school, I by no means 
prefer a form of prayer, if the Superintendent 
be qualified to express with propriety and to 
edification, the wants and feelings of the child- 
ren whom he represents. And of all the forms 
I have ever seen, I confess no one has ap- 
peared to me, in any sufficient degree, appro- 
priate to the special demands of this occasion. 
There should be simplicity without trifling — 
true Scriptural sentiment in the plainest and 



PRAYER FOR CHILDREN. Ill 

most intelligible terms — thoughts and wants 
expressed such as children may truly feel — pe- 
titions calculated to lead their minds to an ac- 
tual engagement in the worship. It is not a 
prayer for the children. This may and ought 
to be offered, indeed, by the teachers with all 
their hearts. But this is a prayer of the child- 
ren for themselves ; and, to be real and sin- 
cere, it must be such as they can understand 
and appropriate without difficulty and in truth. 
I dwell upon this because I esteem it a most 
serious step in the work, either for good or 
evil. Prayer is here, as everywhere, a real pe- 
tition for blessings desired, and, because prom- 
ised, expected. It is the real seeking of God's 
own presence and blessing upon the work be- 
fore them ; and it must, therefore, be a true 
and living thing. I have been present in dif- 
ferent schools, where the voice of the Superin- 
tendent did not reach the ears of many of the 
children ; and where there was so much con- 
fusion and under-noise that his w r ords could 
not be fairly heard ; and where the language 
was so mature and elevated that it was unin- 



112 QUIET ATTENTION. 

telligible and useless. Now if we are to con- 
sider this exercise as a priestly intercession for 
others — then, so that the Being to whom it is 
addressed understands it, the whole may be in 
an unknown tongue to them. But we have no 
such, thought. It is a filial, united supplica- 
tion of God's little ones to Him. It is the 
cry of the lambs to the Great and Good Shep- 
herd. If one speaks for them, they all speak, 
and they have a right to an utterance which 
they can make, and comprehend when made. 
The positive, actual nature of real prayer must 
not be forgotten. We can do nothing without 
the Spirit of God. And we therefore combine 
and agree to ask for His Spirit. The key to 
the whole influence of the hour may be found 
in this first commencement of the work. 

This serious, earnest spirit should pervade 
the whole occasion. We are dealing with im- 
mortal beings upon everlasting concerns, and 
the whole influence and feeling in the work 
should be coincident with this commanding 
thought. The general spirit of the place must 
be earnest and solemn. There should be a 



QUIET ATTENTION. 113 

quietness which is the very result of this solem- 
nity of feeling in the minds of all. It is dis- 
mal to hear a Superintendent shouting for si- 
lence, and constantly ringing a miserable bell, 
that seems itself to be the very sound and in- 
dex of disgrace and indifference. So that the 
voices engaged were really drawn out by earn- 
estness in the occupation, I would rather hear 
almost any amount of noise in the voices of 
the children than this constant acknowledg- 
ment of deficiency in the Superintendent. 
"What is wanting is an influence — the influence 
of prayer — of real religious character and per- 
sonal example — a pervading spirit of affection- 
ate confidence, mutual and engaging, between 
children and teachers and Superintendent. 
And his presence and influence must be felt in 
every portion of the work. Evils are to be 
remedied by prevention. Difficulties are to be 
' anticipated. And a faithful and qualified Su- 
perintendent will carry round with him that 
gentle and gracious authority which requires 
no vehemence ; that personal character which 
attracts and governs by attracting, rather than 
10* 



114 QUIET ATTENTION. 

by any language of rebuke or displeasure. It 
is this spiritual healthful atmosphere which is 
wanting first of all, in the agency of a Sunday* 
school — the atmosphere of order, of love ; of 
real earnestness in the Lord's work as here ar- 
ranged. And though this is made up of de- 
tails and elements, I first look at the combina- 
tion in actual operation. The school thus de- 
scribed, is blessed in its whole character and 
results. When we enter it, and stand in it for 
a season however short, we see that there is a 
real earnestness and spirit of love at work, 
which could only come from God, and is the 
precious evidence that the Lord is there. 




XII. 

SUPERINTENDENT. — PUNCTUALITY. — CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. 

INTELLIGENCE. KINDNESS. 

UE last view of the school in actual 
operation ; "brings us at once to a point 
which is of unsurpassed importance in 
the general subject we are considering. 
I mean the character and qualifications 
of a suitable Superintendent. Everything in 
the actual management of the work must de- 
pend upon him. His power must be supreme. 
He is the executive officer of the little com- 
munity ; and however appointed, whether by 
the pastors, or the Church, or the teachers, or 
be himself the pastor, he must be obeyed sim- 
ply and implicitly in all the business of the 
school in actual session. He has no time to 
discuss questions there with any one. Not 
even the authority which has constituted him 
can be permitted there to interfere with the 



116 SUPERINTENDENT. 

work intrusted to him. He must designate 
and appoint the work and classes of the teach- 
ers. If teachers fail in efficiency or duty, the 
power of arresting the evil must be in his hands. 
And in the whole management and order of 
the operation in actual work, a clear and con- 
ceded supremacy must be in his person. Any 
other view of his rights and station, with the 
entire absence of means of mere physical con- 
trol, would convert the school into a mob. 
And in selecting a superintendent, this whole 
view of power and responsibility must be clearly 
and fully met. You can not doubt, therefore, 
that the superintendent must be a person of 
very advanced and positive qualifications. And 
in proportion to the size of the school, will the 
demand for such qualifications be-the more ab- 
solute and indispensable. Some of these qual- 
ifications, and by no means thoSe of least con- 
sequence, will appear to be very external and 
secondary. Yet they must be had. 

Inherent punctuality of nature, and inva- 
riable punctuality in habit, is indispensable. 
Never should one minute elapse from the ap- 



PUNCTUALITY. 117 

pointed time of commencement, of division of 
the work, or of the close. Punctuality in the 
superintendent is punctuality in the root, for 
the school. In every one else it must grow 
from him. The absence of it there will break 
up and wear out the most flourishing enter- 
prise in this work. Order^ in arrangement and 
in memory of his routine is equally indispensa- 
ble. In no human relation is this habit of 
more value and efficacy. The actual colloca- 
tion of the classes — an eye to that which is 
appropriate and suitable in inferior but not 
unimportant circumstances, in the harmonious 
adjustment of the whole, even in relation to 
the beauty and propriety in the aspect of the 
school — are here important facts. The first 
look at a Sunday-school will, to an expe- 
rienced eye, declare the character and adapta- 
tion of the superintendent. He should have 
an adequate and prompt voice — that can be 
heard by every one without effort or constraint 
— that will be heard and understood at once, 
from the simplicity and distinctness of its ex- 
pression. Much of the happiness and success 



118 CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. 



• 



of the school depends upon this. Teachers 
can not be confused with indistinct sounds, 
nor children bewildered with unintelligible 
commands. The superintendent's manner must 
be simple, prompt, calm, adequate to command 
attention, or he fails entirely. He must be a 
person of few words and peaceful habits. A 
perpetual haranguing — long, indefinite, and 
dilatory prayers — gangling and disjointed ex- 
hortations — habits of chattering and familiar 
interference with teachers or scholars, are more 
out of place in a Sunday-school, perhaps, than 
anywhere besides. Every thing must be real, 
actual, self-demonstrative, to command the 
attention or to win the confidence of chil- 
dren. These are all simple and external 
qualifications, but they are of immense con- 
sequence in the successful management of this 
work. 

But there are much higher qualities which 
must be sought in a successful superintendent. 
He must be one of known and real Christian 
character — standing in the Church of God, 
both socially if possible, and personally sure- 



CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. 119 

ly, as a Christian of influence and acknowl- 
edged position. His office is to be one of 
personal influence entirely. It often is the 
fact, that one whose relations in the world are 
by no means exalted, may still be in the 
Church, from the known excellence of his 
character and fidelity of his walk, a person of 
distinguished influence and position. I have 
known many such, and some whose personal 
excellence and intelligence, though among the 
poor of this world, gave them a very com- 
manding power in the Church. The superin- 
tendent of a Sunday-school must be known as 
a man of Christian holiness and fidelity — to 
whose counsel reference may be had in relig- 
ious questions with confidence, and whose per- 
sonal reputation at the head of his school will 
give reputation and authority to its teachers 
and scholars, as being engaged with him in 
such a work. He should be a man of earnest 
piety and prayer. He is to be the leader in a 
very important work for the Lord — a repre- 
sentative of the Church, and of the Head of 
the Church, in a very responsible relation, and. 



120 - CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. 

should be one whose whole heart is in the labor 
in which he is to be engaged. 

His personal influence is of vast consequence 
in its reflected power through all the week. If 
teachers must blush over the report of his short- 
comings in business or relative duty, or children 
must listen to his name mingled with expressions 
of derision or censure from others, it is impos- 
sible but that such facts must overthrow his 
whole power in his Sabbath work. He must 
be a person of quick and intelligent percep- 
tions, so that he may become readily ac- 
quainted with the teachers, understand their 
characters and their peculiar wants — and be a 
kind and competent adviser to them in any 
questions in their work, or even in their per- 
sonal condition, apart from this peculiar rela- 
tion. He ought to be able to know the chil- 
dren personally, as far as possible, and at any 
rate to be able to discern the adaptation be- 
tween the children and the teachers in their 
peculiar connections, on the successful manage- 
ment of which so much of the happiness and 
success of the school depends. He should be 



INTELLIGENCE. 121 

a person of kind and friendly manners, win- 
ning and retaining an affectionate confidence 
in his sincerity and his real wish for the hap- 
piness of all who are here connected with him. 
Perhaps in no other relation is this character- 
istic of greater consequence. And how much 
comfort and pleasure a bland and conciliating 
manner in the superintendent imparts to the 
whole work of teaching and training in the 
Sunday-school, many of our readers will be 
able to testify from a variety of facts in their 
own • observation. 

In addition to all these, a superintendent 
must practically understand this work. The 
Scriptures which are taught he must be able 
to expound with propriety and usefulness in 
the meetings of teachers, and to apply in 
their principles, in short and useful exhorta- 
tions, now and then addressed to the school. 
The real purpose and method of the school 
must be familiar to him ; and if he be a 
man of tact, of quickness, of intelligence, as 
well as a mature and respected Christian, how 
can he find a place of more usefulness or more 
11 



122 KINDNESS. 

happiness than this ? With such a head to 
the school ; how harmoniously and happily 
every thing works ! And with entire mutual 
confidence between the teachers; superintend- 
ent; and scholars; is there a place on earth of 
greater happiness ; or a work on earth of greater 
delight; than the employment and exercise of 
the Sunday-school ? It becomes the abode of 
peace and blessedness — a little heaven below. 
The influence and atmosphere are all on the 
Lord's side; and children grow up there with 
all the tasteS; habit s ; and advantages of which 
I have spoken in earlier letters. I hope I shall 
not be thought exacting or impracticable in my 
views in this letter. I have had Experience in 
the past years; on both sides of this experi- 
ment; and speak in this ; as on every other 
point considered; just as I have been led to 
think. It may be that such an utterance will 
stir up superintendents as well as teachers to 
an effort for constant improvement in their 
own qualifications; and drive away the indo- 
lent thought; that all this is mere convenience 
and not duty or necessity for them. Let us 



KINDNESS. 123 

realize the old proverb, that "whatever is 
worth doing, is worth doing well ;" and with 
united hearts devote to this all-important work 
the best energies and the utmost industry which 
we can command in its prosecution. 




XIII. 

ANNIVERSARIES. — ANNIVERSARY BOOKS. — MISSIONARY CONTRI- 
BUTIONS. — ELEVENTH ANNIVERSARY. — ST. GEORGE'S. — AC- 
COUNT OF SCHOOLS. 

INCE I had the pleasure of writing my 
-last, the Eleventh Anniversary of my 
Sunday-schools at St. George's has oc- 
curred, and furnishes a subject as an in- 
cident in our line of thought at this 
point. I have always counted much upon the 
influence of an interesting and well-arranged 
anniversary, as very important in a Sunday- 
school. And for this reason, I have been un- 
willing to merge my own local anniversary in 
any common meeting of children in school 
unions either of places or churches. The or- 
derly influence of an appointed and regular 
anniversary as a point in arranging and com- 
pleting the year's work and plans, is very valu- 
able. It brings every part of the work up to a 
fixed settlement, and thus gives additional force 



ANNIVERSARIES. 125 

to the system and method of operation, and to 
the consciousness and feeling of responsibility. 
If well conducted, the exercises of an anniver- 
sary give solidity to the aspect of the school — 
attract attention to it — tend to enlarge its 
bounds by bringing in other children — give a 
measure of satisfaction and contentment to the 
scholars and teachers engaged — and make the 
whole work appear as an actual and important 
part of the congregation and church to which 
the school belongs. I have never failed in car- 
rying out this view in practical experiment for 
more than thirty years past. And I am quite 
satisfied, that no element in my management of 
the Sunday-schools committ'ed to me has been 
more valuable, as an instrument of influence 
upon others, either 'in the way of encourage- 
ment to other schools and teachers, or of en- 
largement of my own. The exercises of these 
anniversaries have varied as our experience and 
observation have advanced. For the first five 
years of the period specified above, we were 
merely accustomed to a few hymns, and an ad- 
dress or sermon, and felt unable to demand the 
11* 



126 ANNIVERSARY BOOKS. 

foremost place for our children. So we placed 
them in the gallery ; and allowed the congrega- 
tion to occupy the floor of the church. We 
were few in numbers, and with but little com- 
parative influence as an institution. When we 
opened the church of the Epiphany twenty- 
six years ago, we had made the Sunday-school 
effort so fundamental there, that I felt able to 
make a great advance. Then our anniversary 
was made an occasion for itself, and we claimed 
the floor of the church for the children, and 
left the galleries to the congregation. This 
plan of occupation I have never varied since. 
There also I added, as a new feature, a dona- 
tion of a book to every scholar, as an anniversary 
token of affection and interest from the con- 
gregation. This also I have constantly main- 
tained, considering it in no degree a reward, 
and graduating the worth in no shape of pro- 
portion to supposed individual merit ; but hav- 
ing it bestowed and received as an expression 
of interest and mutual remembrance. It de- 
lights me now to see in the houses of some of 
my children quite a library of these anniver- 



MISSIONARY CONTRIBUTIONS. 127 

sary books, preserved with the utmost care, 
and valued as very precious remembrances of 
affection. They are little anchors of love and 
bonds of union, everywhere multiplied, which 
tend to hold these children fast to the Church 
in which they have been taught, and to the 
pastor around whom they have learned to cling. 
This is an expensive addition to the anniver- 
sary, but not more so than it is worth. I in- 
clude it in my annual calculation of cost. 
And years of experiment have proved to me, 
that the whole cost of Sunday-school manage- 
ment on the most liberal scale, including ques- 
tion-books, Bibles, hymn-books, children's pa- 
pers, libraries, and necessary printing, with the 
anniversary books added, maybe brought with- 
in two cents a Sunday for each scholar. Surely 
the Christian Church can not ask for a more 
economical expenditure or more effective in- 
vestment than this. 

For six or seven years past we have added 
another important feature to our anniversary 
in our missionary arrangement. We used to 
be satisfied with a regular collection of money 



128 MISSIONARY CONTRIBUTIONS. 

in the school, either weekly or monthly, for 
missionary purposes, and found it difficult to 
advance the effort or the interest beyond a very 
small amount. About the time just specified, 
Kev. Dr. Newton, my present excellent succes- 
sor and brother at St. Paul's, Philadelphia, 
proposed and adopted a plan of organizing 
every class in his schools into a district mis- 
sionary society, to collect its own funds, and 
report them with the amount presented at the 
anniversary of the school. The plan was beau- 
tiful in thought, and perfectly feasible and ef- 
fective in operation. I could only congratulate 
my valued friend upon the conception,, and 
cheerfully adopt it. I made it at once a part 
of my own anniversary proceedings. And it 
enlarged our missionary collections in the 
school the first year from $250 to $650, and it 
has now brought them up to more than $4,000, 
with no troublesome or burdensome effort. I 
have been delighted to see the same system 
carried out in multitudes of schools through- 
out the churches of our land. Every class is a 
missionary society, with its own name chosen 



MISSIONARY CONTRIBUTIONS. 129 

by itself. Each one collects in its own way, 
and among its own social opportunities and re- 
lations, and by its own means. Accordingly, 
they must vary much in their results, as their 
circumstances, their interest, and their indus- 
try vary so entirely. Yet the poorer children 
and teachers are often not only the more lib- 
eral contributors in proportion to their means, 
but also often the largest in actual amount. 
These amounts are weekly and constantly 
gathered, and kept by an appointed treasurer 
for each class, and publicly presented at the 
anniversary in such shape as each adopts. 
Emblematic figures, baskets of flowers, or 
whatever token may occur to their own mind 
as most appropriate to the name adopted, are 
carried to the pastor, who presides at the anni- 
versary, and the amount of each is separately 
announced. Then for the first time is it known 
to any one how much have been the missitpnary 
collections of the year. This new feature has 
vastly increased the interest of our anniversary 
occasions, and, as the results show, has added 
a great impetus to the growth and power 



130 MISSIONARY CONTRIBUTIONS. 

of the school. We have, therefore, now in- 
corporated this as an additional feature. In 
Dr. Newton's plan, the missionary collection 
has superseded the anniversary book, and the 
children are the only apparent givers. The 
view which I have taken of the anniversary 
books, made me wholly averse to taking from 
the congregation the privilege of giving to the 
children, and I have therefore maintained the 
united and reciprocal action— the children giv- 
ing to the work of the Church of their own 
savings and collections — and the Church giving 
to the children, as their personal offering, a 
token of their interest and love. The propor- 
tion of the two is, that the Church give now 
to the children on this day not more than one- 
tenth of the amount which the children give to 
the Church. I do not think it necessary to go 
into the details of our school collections. They 
must always depend upon the earnestness, in- 
dustry, and tact of the various teachers, schol- 
ars, and superintendent and pastor — and thus 
are an admirable school and exercise for all 
these gifts, and for their improvement, as 



ELEVENTH ANNIVERSARY. 131 

the necessity becomes the mother of inven- 
tion. 

Our Eleventh Anniversary was held as usual 
on the afternoon of the Sunday after Easter, 
this year, the 15th of April. The galleries and 
vacant spaces beside the actual pews and aisles 
of the floor of the church, were given to the 
congregation, and were crowded long before 
our exercises began. The schools assembled 
at their rooms, and moved from thence to the 
church at 3 p. m. The pastor was in the pul- 
pit to receive them. The organist played an 
accompaniment as they entered. They came 
in perfect order, and occupied the pews desig- 
nated for them, each teacher preceding the 
class, and having a card indicating the aisle, 
the side of the aisle, and the number of the 
pews severally assigned. They entered the 
church in the following order : First, our Main 
or Church School. I. Female Bible-class, 1 
teacher and 25 scholars. II. Female Bible- 
class, 1 teacher and 63 scholars. III. Male 
Bible-class, 1 teacher and 28 scholars. These 
may all be called adult classes. IV. The First 



132 ACCOUNT OF SCHOOLS. 

Infant-class, 1 teacher and 150 scholars. V. 
The Second Infant-class, 2 teachers and 309 
scholars. VI. The Female Intermediate 
School, 32 teachers and 253 scholars. VII. 
The Male Intermediate School, 22 teachers 
and 189 scholars — making in our Avhole Church 
Sunday-school 63 teachers and officers, and 
1,017 scholars. When all these were seated 
and arranged, in silence and without confu- 
sion, the English Mission-school entered, in the 
same orderly arrangement, preceded by their 
minister, Bev. Mr. Bolton. I. The Infant- 
school, 1 teacher and 150 scholars. II. The 
Female Bible-class, 1 teacher and 16 scholars. 
III. The Male Bible-class, 1 teacher and 10 
scholars. IV. The Female School, 12 teachers 
and 96 scholars. V. The Male School, 14 
teachers and 110 scholars — making 35 teach- 
ers and officers and 382 scholars. Following 
these, the German Mission-school entered, with 
their minister, Bev. Dr. Schramm, preceding 
them. I. The Male School, 4 teachers and 70 
scholars. II. The Female School, 5 teachers 
and 61 scholars — making 9 teachers and 131 



ACCOUNT OF SCHOOLS. 133 

scholars. Our whole assemblage, therefore, 
amounted to 107 teachers, and 1,530 scholars.. 
These are our parish Sunday-schools, exclusive 
of our parish week-day teaching work and 
numbers, which do not come up under this 
head, and which increase our whole number 
of teachers and children to 2,224. Our exer- 
cises were simple and familiar. The multitude 
of children united in their hymns in the fullest 
and finest manner. The Infant-schools .and 
the German school each sung a separate hymn 
— the latter in their own tongue. The ser- 
mon was on the way to prosper in the Lord's 
work — from 2 Chronicles xxxi. 21, "In every 
work that he began in the service of God, he 
did it with all his heart, and prospered." These 
points were illustrated and enforced by facts 
and instances. 1. He did it. 2. He did it 
with his heart. 3. He did it with all his 
heart. — Thus he prospered. After the address, 
the missionary offerings were presented by 
messengers from successive classes. The sums 
varied from $2 up to $218, from different 
classes — amounting in the whole to $4,224. 
12 



134 ACCOUNT OF SCHOOLS. 

The Mission-school surprised and delighted 
me in this : the English school offering 
$163 75 ; the German school $18 50, and the 
Infant school $7 ; in all $189 25, from the 
children of the poor. It was most affecting 
to see four of these boys bearing on a platform 
a beautiful model of the Mission chapel, with 
a banner from the roof inscribed " Our Chap- 
el/'— as the emblem of their gift and their 
school. After another hymn, the anniversary 
books were distributed through all the school, 
to every teacher and scholar-— making about 
1,600 volumes — -expressive of the love and in- 
terest of the congregation. Two hours were 
occupied in all these exercises, and the crowd, 
unwearied, seemed unwilling even then to de- 
part. The whole restilt was to create a deeper 
attachment in St. George's to our Sunday- 
school work, and to confirm my thoughts and 
convictions yet more completely in tjie conclu- 
sion long since adopted, of the unrivaled im- 
portance to a Sunday-school of a pleasant and 
effective anniversary. 




XIV. 

RELATION TO THE CHURCH. — GENERAL SUNDAY-SCHOOL CAUSE. 

— INDEPENDENCE OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. CHANGE OF 

FEELING IN THE CHURCH. 

}Y past letters have led to many in- 
quiries and suggestions to me from 
friends and brethren in all directions, 
and upon all subjects in any way 
connected with our chosen theme. 
Many of these are so entirely theoretical in 
their character, that I can do little for them 
or with them. Important ecclesiastical ques- 
tions and abstract schemes of doctrine and au- 
thority might be appended to these familiar 
letters by a mind more speculative or better 
taught than mine. But they do not present 
themselves in the line of my purpose, nor 
would the discussion of them appear to me 
profitable in this relation. My whole connec- 
tion with Sunday-schools has been in their 



136 RELATION TO THE CHURCH. 

common practical management. I have few 
ideas and less taste to lead me in any way- 
wide of this simple line. But there is one 
question repeatedly asked, the issue of which 
is extremely practical to both sides involved, 
viz. : What is the proper relation of the Sun- 
day-school to the church ? Perhaps we are 
bound in propriety of thought to look at this. 
Yet I should wish to consider it in a very plain 
and practical way. The term Church is really 
so indefinite and multiform in its application, 
that we feel ourselves encompassed by a cloud 
whenever we employ it for any technical pur- 
pose. No single man uses it but in habitually 
various connections, and no two men, perhaps, 
give the same interpretation to it in their own 
thoughts, when it is heard or employed. If 
we take the Saviour's interpretation of His 
Church, — Wherever two or three are gathered 
together in His name He is also present with 
them, — our Sunday-schools every where origin- 
ate in the Church, and are a real embodiment 
and accomplishing of the work of the Church, 
and an exhibition of the Church at work in one of 



GENERAL SUNDAY-SCHOOL CAUSE. 137 

the most important of its offices on earth — the 
feeding and guiding of the lambs of the Lord's 
flock. If we assume the title as describing the 
organized outward assembly of professed Chris- 
tians in their concrete relation as a social body, 
then the Sunday-school may be considered as a 
separate part of the Christian work, and a dis- 
tinct organization for its peculiar purpose of 
usefulness. In this view of the Church, it is 
certain Sunday-schools did not originate there. 
They were not created, nor for many years up- 
held, by any law or action of this body, wher- 
ever located. But this is equally true of the 
most of the works of Christian benevolence in 
the world. These have been habitually started 
by private and individual effort and agreement. 
The Sunday-schools of our country have gen- 
erally originated in the personal, voluntary as- 
sociations and labors of individual Christians ; 
often of Christians from various, organized 
Churches, combining together as in a common 
cause, and for a common benefit. For many 
years the great majority of our schools were so 

sustained and so managed. And in the great 
12* 



138 INDEPENDENCE OF SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. 

efforts of our own time for extending and es- 
tablishing Sunday-schools, the work is carried 
on by agencies wholly independent of any gov- 
erning Church, and the schools established are 
far more generally the parents of Churches 
which grow from them* than the results of 
any Church management or action. It is this 
fact in the history of Sunday-schools which 
has given rise to the question proposed, and 
which perhaps has awakened and fostered in 
many cases a jealous spirit of independence, in 
fear of some relative action which may be un- 
desirable and oppressive. Our Sunday-schools 
have been the results, on the one side, of hu- 
man necessities perceived ; and on the other, 
of the Christian spirit of benevolence and love 
divinely imparted. They grew up with the 
simple design and desire of direct usefulness to 
children neglected, and not from any plan of 
church-extension or organization as a scheme 
of work or power. They appeared to be the 
private property and enterprise of individual 
Christians. And when a community of per- 
sons who perhaps had done little or nothing 



INDEPENDENCE OF SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. 139 

individually to encourage and maintain them, 
claimed authority over them, a hesitation of 
submission was felt and expressed by no means 
unnatural or unreasonable. 

But though there still remain many such 
schools., and such alone will be generally estab- 
lished among the scattered and neglected pop- 
ulation of the poor, either in the cities or the 
remote settlements of the country, the actual 
connection of Sunday-schools with churches 
of every kind has at last become universal. 
Every church has its Sunday-school, and the 
most of Sunday-schools have an actual and in- 
separable relation to the Church in this con- 
nection. In this view, the term church has 
resolved itself in our use into the particular 
congregation of professing Christians in any 
constituted assembly for habitual worship, and 
under any name. And even then there is the 
distinction remaining, between that which this 
Church does through the voluntary agency of 
its individual members, and what it appoints 
in its corporate character. When we leave 
the Sunday-school of a particular Church to 



140 INDEPENDENCE OF SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. 

arrange its own rules, and plans, and opera- 
tions, in an association of its actual laborers — it 
is as really a part of the work of that Church 
as any other portion of its engagements and 
duties for the Lord. Nor would it become 
more really so, and generally not as profitably 
so, if all its laws and plans were made part of 
that church-action, in its technical and corporate 
capacity. I am fond of the independence of 
the Sunday-school. I desire to see it unham- 
pered by external authority — and especially 
unrestricted by laws and rules made by those 
who do not work in it, and have no real expe- 
rience of its operations or its needs. As a 
practical fact, so far as I know, this indepen- 
dence has been the general rule of the opera- 
tion. I have known no school over which any 
Church professed to hold a dominance, or with 
which the Church pretended any other inter- 
ference than the desire and the obligation to 
promote and sustain it with affectionate liber- 
ality and thoughtfulness. The feelings of the 
Churches, or of Christians in their church-con- 
connection and corporate character, have very 



CHANGE OF FEELING IN THE CHURCH. 141 

much changed in the history of this operation. 
Sunday-schools were not regarded with favor 
by Churches in their commencement. They 
were often considered appendages of unneces- 
sary cost : Sunday gatherings of children which 
were a nuisance of inconvenience to older and 
steady worshipers, and a new system of repub- 
licanism in Christianity which threatened much 
insubordination and possible conflict with he- 
reditary and constituted power in the Church. 
We who have worked long in the enterprise 
well remember how many and great were our 
difficulties in obtaining the aid, patronage, or 
even the toleration of the elder Christians who 
governed the Churches when we began. We 
have lived to see a universal revolution in this 
respect. The present Churches are, to a great 
extent, manned and ruled by those who were 
themselves educated in these schools. So that 
now we rarely feel the want of patronage ; but 
rather fear the overaction of interest and con- 
trol from the churches to which our schools 
appertain. The aspect of the question of re- 
lation which now forces itself upon our minds 



142 CHANGE OF FEELING IN THE CHURCH. 

is not so much that of authority as that of 
mutual duty ; not how much submission the. 
Sunday-school is to render to the Church ; but 
how much encouragement and aid the Church 
is to render to the Sunday-school. In consid- 
ering this question, however, there is a further 
difficulty in the variety of incidental differ- 
ences between the various local schemes of 
church authority. I do not know that any 
where, except it maybe in some scattered cases, 
it is the habit to settle interests of this descrip- 
tion in a public meeting of church-members or 
communicants, though these really constitute 
the acknowledged Church in any given location 
or in connection with any given edifice or house. 
Such matters are left in the hands of a com- 
mittee — or a session — or a vestry — as the dif- 
ferent organic arrangement may.be, who are 
severally the representatives of the Church, and 
authorized to act in its stead. The responsi- 
bility and the action of these appointed agents 
a*e the responsibility and the action of the 
Church. At any rate, so we must view it in 
the considerations which may arise here. And 



CHANGE OF FEELING IN THE CHURCH. 143 

as the case stands before us, the question is. 
What is the duty of the Church, and what is 
the duty of the pastor, to the Sunday-school ? 
The duty of the Church, in discharging an 
immensely important part of its covenant ob- 
ligation — and the duty of the pastor, in fulfill- 
ing an equally valuable and necessary portion 
of his appointed ministry — I will try to speak 
of both, as they have been spread before my 
mind and experience, in a simple and practical 
way. Questions of authority I need not dis- 
cuss. I have never seen the Sunday-school 
which offered the least rebellion to a fostering 
Church, or a loving pastor — or a Sunday-school 
that did not delight in bringing all its fruits 
and gains, and in the utmost abundance possi- 
ble, to the bosom of the Church for its enlarge- 
ment, and to the heart of the pastor for his 
comfort. And I know no other relation on 
this side than affectionate gratitude for all the 
care and interest they see awakened for them. 




XV. 

RELATION TO THE CHURCH. — DUTY OF THE CHURCH. — MIS- 
SION SCHOOLS. 

HEN we ask what are the relations 
of the Sunday-school to the Church, 
} we place both of the parties in- 
volved in the question before our 
minds, in an actual and corporate 
existence. They seem to stand as individual 
responsible bodies, distinct and separate from ( 
each other, and to ask the question, What are 
we to do and to receive from each other in our 
reciprocal independent attitudes ? And even 
this statement is not complete, for we find 
both these parties spoken of with entirely dif- 
ferent interpretation and association. The 
Sunday-school may be an individual and local 
school, and the Church a limited and local 
society of Christians of any name. Or the % 



RELATION TO THE CHURCH. 145 

Sunday-school may be the great, general en- 
terprise, and the Church the whole corporate 
body of Christians of any particular denomin- 
ation. I need not present even a more general 
view of the Church than this, though it would 
be quite possible. Now only the first of these 
statements of the proposition is the one of 
which I here speak. And as the term rela- 
tions here simply means relative duties and 
obligations, we may so consider and speak of 
the subject. What, then, are the duties of a 
Church to the Sunday-school as an institution, 
within the limits of its operation and in- 
fluence ? Surely, first of all, to establish Sun- 
day-schools to the utmost extent of- their 
power. Every Church is bound, as a society 
or family of the Lord's people, to take the 
utmost care of the instruction and training of 
the youth belonging to them. The one great 
instrument in the salvation of men, is the 
Word of God. The earliest possible age in 
which this can be brought into effectual appli- 
cation to the souls of men, is the best period. 

The power is all of God, and the promise of 
13 



146 DUTY OF THE CHURCH. 

its exercise, to make our " children holy/' is 
also His. I must assume the fact, that there 
is no other method or agency within our reach 
so adequate or appropriate to this important 
and desirable result, as Scriptural Sunday- 
schools. I have illustrated this point perhaps 
sufficiently in my previous letters. And I 
must therefore assume the great obligation of 
every Church to instruct and educate their 
own children for Christ and heaven, to be iden- 
tical with the obligation to maintain and es- 
tablish Sunday-schools throughout the whole 
field of their influence and responsibility. In 
the purpose and social effort to attain this end, 
there must be the largest scheme of work, and 
the most liberal estimate and arrangement of 
means to carry it out, within the cpntrol of the 
particular Church. No religious or benevolent 
object can be presented to a Church so com- 
manding in importance, or so compensating in 
results. Whatever, therefore, a Church can do 
in any expenditure or provision for the Lord's 
work upon earth, they are bound to do first 
and most effectively for Sunday-schools within . 



DUTY OF THE CHURCH. 147 

their borders. I can not speak of this as 
secondary to any claim or call to be made upon 
them. The obligation to provide & decent 
and appropriate house for their own worship is 
no more imperative in their condition, than the 
obligation to make similar just and ample pro- 
vision for the care and convenience of their 
Sunday-schools. The duty of supporting the 
preaching of the Gospel to the adults, and of 
maintaining the pastoral office for this pur- 
pose, is not more obligatory or needful than 
the duty of full and adequate provision for 
preaching the Gospel to the children in the 
appropriate arrangements of the Sunday-school. 
And whatever books or other means of accom- 
plishing the work required are necessary, and 
are within the means and scale of the particu- 
lar Churches, can not be withheld without un- 
faithfulness to the Lord, and injustice to those 
for whose salvation He has gathered His peo- 
ple as a Church and family for Himself. 
"Whether this work be done by the Church as 
a legitimate body in any shape of common ses- 
sion, or whether it be done by the members of 



148 DUTY OF THE CHURCH. 

this body, acting in individual and voluntary 
association does not seem to me to be a ques- 
tion of any consequence. In either case, the 
Church are doing the work required, and their 
own absolute duty, and in both cases they are 
doing it as the Church, and for the Church, 
w r hich is equally and specially represented in 
each. I should deem it mere absolute duty in 
each case ; and no more consider it a work of 
relative benevolence to others, than the anal- 
ogous work of employing and supporting the 
ministry of the Gospel among themselves. 
The Sunday-school of the Church is a living 
part, and a most important part of that 
Church, and they must see that in the pro- 
visions which they make for it, all their chil- 
dren may be taught of the Lord. 

But around every Church there is a field of 
local labor and usefulness among children who 
are neglected by others, and for whose soul no 
man cares. Here arises a local field for benevo- 
lence in this relation. These may be gathered 
into the nursery of the Church already estab- 
lished, and thus perhaps saved by the Lord's 



MISSION. SCHOOLS. 149 

blessing for ever, and made to carry the bless- 
ings of salvation to the families from which 
they came. And our whole experience shows 
ns how appropriate and successful this class of 
religious effort has been made in this relation 
— and how richly and surely a Church so labor- 
ing and sowing gathers a harvest and wages 
unto eternal life. Or this aggressive action 
may be carried on in the establishment of mis- 
sion or branch schools in neighboring and con- 
venient localities. Then it becomes a benevo- 
lent agency of the most valuable character, 
often raising whole neighborhoods to respecta- 
bility and usefulness, and becoming the living 
seed of other Churches to rise and flourish in 
their turn, and to carry forward the blessed 
work for others still beyond. All the refining 
and exalting influences of which I have spoken 
come into operation thus in new fields, and 
exercise their power from new centers to per- 
petuate and extend an agency of blessing to 
mankind, unsurpassed in value or effect. But 
this view, which has been thus far limited to 
a locality, may be carried out to the full ex- 
13* 



150 MISSION SCHOOLS. 

tent of missionary extension of Sunday-schools 
through the limits of a nation or the world. 
I am persuaded that no benevolent action is 
more real and efficient to the utmost extent to 
which it can be spread abroad. And with the 
large and growing institutions which are en- 
gaged in this work in our country, there are 
abundant opportunities for the enlargement of 
the effort to the utmost extent to which any 
Church shall be found able to go. All the 
arguments and reasons which may be urged for 
the extension of the Gospel on the earth by 
any agency ; will apply with equal force to this, 
and receive in addition all the peculiar obliga- 
tions and promises which connect the interests 
and hopes of the Gospel so peculiarly and es- 
pecially with the young. 

This is the duty of the Church, and of every 
Church. And whether it be accomplished by 
this Church in its corporate character, or by 
its members in voluntary relations I am un- 
concerned, so that the work be done. I ac- 
knowledge my own taste to be to have as much 
as possible done in all the work of the Church 



MISSION SCHOOLS. 151 

by individual Christians in cheerful and spon- 
taneous action and labors of love — and as little 
as possible required or left to the Church for 
legislation and government in its organic char- 
acter. I greatly prefer the living to the " dead 
hands/' — and believe that the more the work 
of doing good to men is committed to individ- 
ual responsibility and elective association, the 
more effective and living it will be& And when 
the active aspect of this work comes into view, 
and the teachers are considered by whom .the 
school or schools of any Church are to be con- 
ducted, whether they are designated by any 
vote of that Church as a body ; either niediatety 
or immediately, or agree in a voluntary union 
of action for the purpose proposed — they are 
the parts and members of the Church, and for 
this purpose they are really the Church in ac- 
tion, and in action for the accomplishment of 
a most important part of the duty of the 
Church as the Lord's family and people on 
the earth. They are gathered in His name, and 
for His work, and with His presence, and es- 
pecially as representatives of the particular 



152 MISSION SCHOOLS. 

Church in which they work and to which they 
appertain. It seems to me a very worthless 
inquiry and mere barren technicality , whether 
this or that sequence of incidents has preceded 
and accompanies their work. The whole Church 
ought to teach — as resolved into a committee 
of the whole for such employment. They are 
all the messengers of that Son of Man who 
came to seel^and to save the lost, and they are 
to follow His example and to walk in the line 
of His commandments and His purpose, in the 
fufillment of their duty as members of His 
family. If they will all be fruitful in the 
work, there will be no questions about mutual 
authority. Let them all continue to teach 
and preach the Lord Jesus Christ. Let the 
best, the wisest, the most experienced, give 
themselves to the all-important labor of saving 
others and leading the ignorant to the Saviour. 
In an active, earnest Church there will be no 
quarrels or questions. It is when Jeshurun 
waxes fat that he kicks. It is when men have 
settled on their lees that their love grows stale 
and their taste is corrupted. Then the lust of 



MISSION SCHOOLS. 153 

government creeps in, and while they will do 
nothing to help, they will be abundantly ready 
to do much to control and to impede. To my 
mind the Church is never more beautifully and 
really presented in its normal and living shape, 
than when engaged in the Lord's work and 
presence in feeding His lambs. 




XVI. 

DUTY OF THE CHURCHES. — SUITABLE BUILDINGS.— PROVISION 
FOR MISSION SCHOOLS. — METHOD OF CONDUCTING. 

HE duty of a Church to provide amply 
and liberally for the support of its 
Sunday-school, is a very practical and 
intelligible point. The various ability 
of Churches must be allowed to regu- 
late the amount and degree of this provision, 
as of all the other obligations or benevolent ex- 
penditures of the Church. But we have a right 
to insist that this particular obligation shall 
not be made second or inferior to any other. I 
will not speak now of the minuter arrange- 
ments and provisions for conducting the school. 
But I must speak of the necessity of an ade- 
quate building, appropriately arranged. Much 
of the usefulness and success of the enterprise 
must depend upon this. It is impossible to 
maintain a school successfully without it. 



1 SUITABLE BUILDINGS. 155 

When we began this work we knew but little 
of the conditions of success. We gathered our 
children in galleries of the churches ; or, if per- 
mitted, which was rarely the the case, in the 
pews on the floor. The scattered children 
were beyond the reach of a Superintendent's 
voice, and without the means of any sympathy 
with each other in a common work. The 
teachers were placed in such awkward personal 
relations to the children that no successful im- 
pression could be made, and no direct personal 
instruction given. The whole attempt was an 
inevitable failure, and the cause suffered much 
by it. A second stage in our operations, and a 
great advance, as it was esteemed at the time, 
was to dig out a better cellar for the church, 
and pack our children there. Here we fought 
with damp, and cold, and fetid atmosphere, till 
our universal experience convinced us that 
though the Gospel might flourish in involun- 
tary dungeons and catacombs, a chosen cellar 
for it was no adequate or appropriate place. I 
have occupied such a cellar until the floor fell 
down beneath our feet in its quick but natural 



156 SUITABLE BUILDINGS. ■ 

decay. Our Churches have been rapidly get- 
ting their schools out of damp cellars, and 
erecting suitable and appropriate buildings ex- 
pressly for their use. And much of our man- 
ifest gain and improvement are arising from 
this one source. I hardly see a new church 
now erected in this city which consigns its 
schools to the tombs, and compels its best 
agents to complain, u clamavi e profundis" in 
the prosecution of their important work. 
Comfort and convenience in arrangement, I am 
thankful to say, habitually distinguish our 
more modern preparations. To classify the 
children, to bring them together as a collection 
of little congregations, in one audience, to place 
them in direct and easy communication and 
sympathy with their teachers, to give them the 
opportunity of familiar instruction without 
noise or effort — we must have a compact, ac- 
cessible, and well ventilated room, with seats 
and construction expressly prepared for the 
purpose. It must be oj)en, airy, light, and at- 
tractive, so that the influence shall be in all 
respects exhilarating and encouraging. What 



SUITABLE BUILDINGS. 157 

I should like to have for such a work I have 
never yet seen, for I have never yet seen a 
Church willing to make the effort, or informed 
enough to cherish the purpose ; for such provi- 
sions as I have felt the cause deserved. The 
best I have ever attained, is to make, in the 
best way I could, the same room answer for a 
Sunday-school and for the weekly meetings of 
the adult congregation, a scheme involving very 
great, and, in some respects, insuperable diffi- 
culties. Could I have the least influence with 
the Churches, I would entreat them to make 
distinct, adequate, and appropriate accommo- 
dations for their Sunday-schools, entirely inde- 
pendent of any other use. Our congregations 
often complain of the want of such arrange- 
ments for their own united worship, and justly 
enough, for the problem of ecclesiastical archi- 
tects seems often to be how to make the occu- 
pants of their buildings most uncomfortable. 
But the difficulty becomes just so much the 
greater, when the interests and habits of child- 
ren are concerned, from their greater sensibility 
to material comforts, and their less power of 

14 



158 PROVISION FOR MISSION SCHOOLS. 

calculation and self-control. And if a Church 
find that they must make themselves comfort- 
able to be good, we say, with so much more 
force of truth, so must they also provide for 
the children of the Church yet more abund- 
antly. 

The consideration of this material point 
leads me to speak of the provision to be made 
for mission schools. This is a new branch in 
our work, which has grown up lately and rap- 
idly, and with much encouragement. Our 
Churches of all kinds are generally composed 
of self-supporting and comparatively respecta- 
ble families. Indeed, the Christian and Church 
influence will be habitually to make them so, 
in the result. The elevating and refining 
power of the Gospel in the social and personal 
relations of men, is one of the wonders of its 
constant operation. And wherever Ave begin 
our work for the Lord, with whatever class or 
character of low and neglected population, the 
result is always the same. We lift the portion 
on whom we particularly operate, out of their 
former condition, and leave still behind the 



METHOD OF CONDUCTING. 159 

mass from which they have been taken — just 
as destitute and as poor as before. In our 
mission schools, therefore, there will always be 
a calculation of a Church and congregation 
that will grow out of them. All their relations 
local and social, will undergo a distinct trans- 
formation, and their associations and anticipa- 
tions will be of a new and far superior stamp. 
Of these mission efforts in our cities and towns 
two separate classes present themselves. The 
purpose to constitute an actual, self-supporting 
Church is one. This is a frequent, and, if well- 
managed, a successful experiment. A Sunday- 
school in a poor neighborhood will grow into 
such an establishment in a few years ; and, if 
fairly encouraged, will soon entirely take care 
of itself. A congregation of thriving and pros- 
perous people, even in small lines of earthly 
business, will accrue around it, and a Church 
of permanent character and influence take its 
place. 

Many such instances will occur to the minds 
of those who are familiar with this subject. 
But the unquickened mass behind remains the 



160 METHOD OF CONDUCTING. 

same. And there needs, therefore, besides, a 
constant mission work which shall be consid- 
ered as such alone : — a work which shall be 
for the poor — the poorest — and shall conduct 
them individually up to a higher stand, but 
shall not be expected to take a higher stand 
itself. These two efforts can never be mingled. 
There is in our country a pride and jealousy 
among the poor, which is one of the hardest 
elements to govern or propitiate. If a family 
of their own number and personal acquain- 
tance, by employment and sobriety are ele- 
vated in their condition and comforts of living, 
and are seen in their congregation with new 
clothing and better appearance, the effect 
almost certainly is to drive back the others 
who have not so succeeded. The conscious- 
ness of their own appearance and poverty mor- 
tifies them so much the more in the compari- 
son. They object to coming when others 
around them look so much better and dress so 
much more nicely than they. This spirit we 
have constantly to encounter. And, therefore, 
my experience leads me to say that we can 



METHOD OF CONDUCTING. 161 

never confound these two missionary efforts. 
We are to start one with the intention of rais- 
ing it as an effort — and the other with the 
opposite plan ; of keeping it down as a scheme ; 
though by it we may and must raise the indi- 
viduals connected with it. Of the two, this 
latter is peculiarly the missionary work. The 
other might be more justly called an enter- 
prise or investment — profitable, indeed, in the 
highest degree. But this is a work for the 
poor, and among the poor, and the poor alone. 
A more blessed and important work can hardly 
be conceived. The poverty of our country is 
peculiar. No European rules or experiments 
answer any purpose as an example or prece- 
dent for us. In all those there is a fundamen- 
tal distinction of classes acknowledged on both 
sides. Poverty there, to a great degree, may 
be contented poverty, and willing to be re- 
lieved as poverty. Here there is no social 
point so low that the man and^ the boy does 
not hear from others of the oppressions and 
the possibilities of their condition. Something 
better, something higher, is for ever in the 
14* 



162 METHOD OF CONDUCTING. 

view, and the subject of discussion. And the 
characteristic of American poverty is every- 
where discontented poverty, aspiring poverty, 
and must be dealt with as such. We have, 
therefore, to arrange our outside Sunday- 
school efforts with these facts in our constant 
view, and wisely plan for the accomplishment 
of the ends we propose, with the clear and 
distinct consideration of them. This j)oint I 
must endeavor to illustrate more particularly. 




XVII. 

MISSION SCHOOLS. — EMIGRANTS. — ST. GEORGE'S. — MISSION 
CHAPEL. — PLAN AND OCCUPATION. 

) HE subject of mission-schools, of which 
I spoke in my last, has assumed, for a 
few past years, new and enlarged im- 
portance. We formerly held them 
with no distinct individual design 
connected with them. We collected 
them and taught them in our public school- 
houses, or in any convenient attainable place. 
The whole idea was immediate present in- 
struction to the children, with no view of any 
definite result into which the operations might 
grow. Many of these schools, accordingly, 
were merely temporary efforts, and passed 
soon and entirely away. The benefits con- 
ferred by them upon individual children might 
be real and abiding. The solid and substantia] 
benefit to the community was not seen. Our 



164 MISSION SCHOOLS. 

later habit has been to set up these mission- 
schools with the distinct idea of some perma- 
nent influence and organization, looking in 
some shape to the establishment of a Church 
of some kind that will grow out of it. So that 
our Sunday-schools have become more and 
more the germs of living and permanent 
Churches — and thus have gained an increasing 
aspect of abiding usefulness in the community. 
The character and proportion of our poor pop- 
ulation have very much changed during the 
process of this effort. I shall not trouble my- 
self with attempted accuracy of statistical 
statements in this connection. But all who 
are actively engaged among the poor will real- 
ize the fact that American poor people are 
becoming remarkably few, while the amount 
of foreign pauperism is immense. This is a 
population with no plans nor hopes. It floats 
to our shores, and settles, for the time, wher- 
ever it can, mainly in our cities — content to 
have a shelter for a season, and with no defi- 
nite anticipations of any permanent result. 
They are a very difficult population to help or 



EMIGRANTS. 165 

benefit. Whatever is done for them is like 
salting a running stream. It must be con- 
stantly repeated, carried out on a permanent 
system, or it is useless. This is the class 
among whom our mission-schools are mainly 
established. The old meeting of rich and poor 
together in our earlier and smaller Sunday- 
school work ; has yielded very much to this 
new aspect of affairs. The poor of whom I 
now speak can hardly be induced to come to 
our actual Church-schoolS; and mingle on an 
equal ground with other children. This view 
is realized perhaps more completely in this 
city than elsewhere. Here it must be met and 
calculated upon continually. 

In such circumstances I will illustrate a 
plan by a particular history. Perhaps six 
years since; we found the difficulty of which I 
speak pressing us in St. George's, and deter- 
mined in some way to meet it. "We hired a 
room in the midst of our poorest neighboring 
population, and opened a mission-school. We 
scoured the neighborhood for children and 
teachers, and found great willingness on the 



166 st. George's. 

part of both to come in. We soon collected a 
school of two hundred children, and acquired 
the labor of faithful teachers of different de- 
nominations. It was the first effort of the 
kind in our region of the city. Not long after 
our Baptist friends, some of whom had engaged 
with us, believed that the whole work would 
prosper more in a separate and independent 
action, took possession of another room, and 
soon had a nice building erected for them 
about two blocks from us, by a very liberal 
gentleman of their Church, since deceased — 
in which they are still successfully at* w r ork. 
Soon after, another neighboring Episcopal 
Church pursued the same course, and it has 
resulted in the erection of a neat and attract- 
ive chapel, a little more distant, which prom- 
ises to be an independent and self-sustaining 
Church. Not long after our Presbyterian 
neighbors gathered another school of the same 
description a few blocks off in another direc- 
tion, which has also flourished, though not 
yet in the erection of another building. In 
the meantime our mission-school grew and en- 



MISSION CHAPEL. 167 

largcd itself continually, and seemed benefited 
by the extending of the spirit and feeling in 
the neighborhood. We had just so much en- 
larged the market and the supply. And now 
we found ourselves with so large a portion of 
German children, to whom English teaching 
was of no avail, that we separated them also, 
to another room and place, for practical in- 
struction in their tongue. Thus the whole 
effort extended itself until the summer of 
1858, when we determined to erect an adequate 
chapel for ourselves. The children of the 
Church Sunday-school undertook to pay for 
the building, if the Church would pay for the 
lots. And we commenced in that autumn, 
and finished our chapel in the autumn of 
1859 ; an edifice of eighty-five feet by fifty- 
two, with a tower and bell — finished com- 
pletely with organ and every proper appendage 
to the most decorous worship, and with abun- 
dant rooms for schools and teaching, at a cost 
for the building and furniture, of seventeen 
thousand dollars, which was to be paid by the 
collections and efforts of the Sunday-school 



168 PLAN AND OCCUPATION. 

children. This beautiful building was fully 
occupied in September, 1839, and has been a 
completely successful and happy experiment. 
It accommodated our German and English 
schools and congregations in the two stories, 
with abundant room at the time of its occupa- 
tion. But they have already outgrown the 
place, and we must now take measures for the 
separate accommodation of the Germans again. 
I consider this work so practical and so exem- 
plary as an experiment of mission-school work, 
that I shall describe its details more minutely. 
Its plan is free worship for the poor. It 
has no collections from them for the expenses 
of the chapel, though they have solicited the 
privilege of contributing, in their degree, to 
outside objects of benevolence. It is not in- 
tended to grow into a self-supporting Church 
— or in any improving aspect of it to shut out 
at any time the poorest of the poor from the 
worship and instruction which it offers. Every 
thing is done to make them all feel at home, 
and entitled to all the blessings which it offers 
to them all. An American clergyman is the 



PLAN AND OCCUPATION. 169 

pastor of the English-speaking flock, and a 
German clergyman is the pastor of the Ger- 
mans. The sexton has a residence for his 
family in the building, and thus has opportu- 
nity for entire charge and protection of the 
property. On every Sunday, at 9 A. m., the 
English and German schools both assemble in 
their different rooms — the one averaging three 
hundred and eighty, and the other one hundred 
and forty attendants. At 10^ A. m. there is 
public English worship in the Chapel, which 
seats about eight hundred. At 1^ p.m. there 
is public German worship in the same chapel. 
At 3 1 p. m. there is again public English wor- 
ship in the chapel. Thus the whole Sabbath 
is occupied with a busy stirring work for the 
poor. The teachers are, perhaps, more inter- 
ested in the work than in most of our Church- 
schools, and have labored with a self-denial 
and devotion exceedingly encouraging and sat- 
isfactory. The Lord has smiled upon the 
effort so abundantly, that, as I have remarked, 
we are already crowded, and are compelled to 
look to another enlargement. 



170 PLAN AND OCCUPATION., 

In the week there is a daily English school 
of one hundred and thirty children. There is 
a reading-room for men and boys open every 
evening from 6 to 9 o'clock, comfortably fur- 
nished, and provided with an increasing li- 
brary, and papers and magazines. There is 
an evening lecture for the English congre- 
gation on every Tuesday evening, and a 
prayer-meeting every Thursday evening. There 
is also a lecture for the German congregation 
every Friday evening, And a sewing-school 
for girls of both on every Saturday morning. 
Thus the whole time is occupied, and the work 
is constantly going on. The English .pastor 
has his study and office in the chapel, and 
there attends to the wants and calls of the 
people of his charge. There are now two 
hundred and twenty-one English and seventy- 
eight German families in actual connection 
with the mission, with one hundred and thirty- 
four communicants in the English, and thirty- 
six in the German congregation. The Lord 
has graciously blessed the operation in a very 
remarkable degree ; and every visit to it in any 



PLAN AND OCCUPATION. 171 

of its departments and details only enlarges 
and impresses my view of its important and 
invaluable influence. Perhaps this is as suc- 
cessful an experiment of a mission-school as 
has yet been made ; and I know no point in 
which it has failed or disappointed our just 
expectations. The cost of managing it in all 
its details, will be within four thousand dollars 
a year. Already it has blessed many souls 
with salvation. It has elevated and improved 
the whole neighborhood around it. It has ex- 
ceedingly attached the poor to its privileges, 
and has become a very popular effort both in 
the congregation of our Church, and among 
the poor who enjoy it. I have given its de- 
tails in this connection as an illustration of 
what may be done by voluntary effort in this 
work, and as an encouragement to the toil of 
other laborers in the cause. 




XVIII. 

SUNDAY-SCHOOL EFFORT. — PUBLIC SCHOOLS. — DUTY OF THE 
CHURCH TO THE CAUSE. — SUCCESSFUL EFFORTS. 

)HE duty of the Church to Sunday- 
schools is by no means exhausted, in 
the efforts of individual and separate 
congregations. The work has now 
grown to a great cause in the land 
and in the world. And the whole 
Church has to consider it as an inseparable in- 
stitution in the effort of edifying and carrying 
on the Lord's work among men. This relation 
is probably a lasting and final one. Its local 
and demonstrated influence and value in con- 
nection with individual congregations, have 
displayed clearly to view its importance as a 
missionary and propagative arrangement in 
every outlying field of earth. What is it, 
after all — but the Church and Gospel for chil- 



SUNDAY-SCHOOL EFFORT. 173 

dren ? It is a divine arrangement for Chris- 
tian education ; for bringing the Gospel in 
direct and appropriate application to youthful 
minds. It will, therefore, present itself as the 
habitual and anticipated instrument for the re- 
ligious instruction and welfare of the youth in 
every land, under its faithful employment in 
Christian wisdom and skill. In our land the 
Sunday-school effort assumes a very peculiar 
importance as a sure scheme for the religious 
education of our children. And when we 
estimate properly the relation of this to adult 
religion, we must say still further, it is the 
most hopeful scheme for the religious welfare 
of the nation. Family religious teaching, pre- 
cious and important as it is, can be calcu- 
lated upon only in a very small comparative 
portion of our population. Myriads of fami- 
lies are among us, rich and poor, where it 
would be vain to hope that the least regard 
to the religious instruction of the children 
would be found. And, as I have already 
shown, no family religious teaching can accom- 
plish all the benefits which Sunday-school in- 



174 PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 

struction is adapted to confer. Public secular 
education can never be calculated upon as in 
the least degree supplying the want. The con- 
test even for the remotest form of religious ac- 
knowledgement and observance in our public 
schools, is more and more unpromising as time 
goes on. The defense which is made for any 
religious element in it ; is at this time owing 
almost wholly to the influence of our Sunday- 
schools. And the continuance and still more 
the enlargement of this element in public edu- 
cation, will only flow from the same source. 
So far, therefore, will our public schools be 
from supplying the great want of religious 
teaching, that they will not be able to hold 
their own ground in this relation, but as an ad- 
junct to the still more distinct and decided op- 
eration of the Sunday-school. It is most true 
in this respect that the Sabbath sanctifies the 
week. Take away the influence of our Sun- 
day-school work as now carried on, and I ap- 
prehend the controversy for any religious aspect 
in our weekly public schools would be much 
more readily settled. Whatever, therefore, is 



DUTY OF THE CHURCH TO THE CAUSE. 175 

the importance of the religious education of 
the young, must be the estimate of the value 
and necessity of the universal establishment 
and maintenance of Sunday-schools. And, 
as we survey the immense field which our 
country presents in limits of population and 
settlement, constantly enlarging, we see my- 
riads of youth and children^ who are appar- 
ently to be taught the Word of God, and to 
be made partakers of the salvation which it 
reveals, only in the extension and support of 
the Sunday-school cause as widely as it can be 
carried out. 

This displays the duty of the Church in its 
most general aspect to the nation in which it 
is established. The Christian Church in this 
country is to sustain the responsibility of ex- 
tending the Gospel through the millions of our 
increasing population. Their instrument for 
this work, as manifestly laid upon them by a 
gracious Providence, is the Sunday-school en- 
terprise. The principles and de.tails already 
laid down, come into direct application to this 
larger field. Just the obligation which impels 



176 DUTY OF THE CHURCH 

a single congregation to provide for the mis- 
sionary instruction of the poor and ignorant in 
its neighboring localities ; must lead the whole 
body of Christians to employ the same thor- 
oughly tried instrument for an extended evan- 
gelizing of the young in the scattered and out- 
lying districts of our immense territory. This 
becomes, truly and effectually, a missionary 
work of the most blessed and effective value. 
There is hardly a settlement in the land, in 
which a Sunday-school may not be established. 
The reports of Sunday-school missionaries 
laboring in our distant regions, and the expe- 
rience of many individual Christian men and 
women in their personal efforts, have demon- 
strated the facility with which this work may 
be accomplished. Barns and sheds, school- 
houses and private dwellings, have furnished a 
temporary but real abode for schools collected 
from scattered neighborhoods where but few, 
and sometimes but a single real Christian could 
be found to undertake and carry on the work. 
Children have gathered from the cottages of 
the poor in the woods and mountains with 



TO THE CAUSE. 177 

delight — walking often miles to reach, the 
humble but attractive spot where they might 
learn what God's dear Son had done for them. 
The reports of this work present some of the 
most affecting and encouraging details which 
are to be found in Christian history, of the 
eagerness with which the poor and banished 
have sought the privileges thus offered, and 
the grace and bounty with which God has been 
pleased to bless them. The instruments in 
such relations are often but partially qualified. 
Men and women cheerfully undertake the work 
of teaching to whom the Word of God has 
yet never been made the power of the Spirit 
for their own conversion. And though I have 
laid down as a principle the absolute necessity 
for religious character and experience, as quali- 
fications for Sunday-school teachers — we can 
not apply this principle as a rule of exclusion 
in these scattered and missionary fields. Kather 
we must welcome all to come, to teach and 
study together. For in such cases, it is more 
frequently a mutual study than a relative in- 
struction in the Word of God. All that has 



178 SUCCESSFUL EFFORTS. 

been said of the influence and results of mis- 
sion-schools, in more accessible localities, is 
equally applicable to these extended missionary 
efforts. Many Churches have risen from the 
bosom of these mission-schools — in the most 
remote sections of our land. A young man of 
my acquaintance, a mere youth, was thrown 
into a settlement of the Far "West, and com- 
menced, alone, a Sunday-school. His school 
gathered increasing numbers from the wilder- 
ness around him, till parents and children all 
collected, made the necessity for a permanent 
house of worship. "With the utmost effort 
among his friends, he gathered means to build 
his little temple in the woods. Soon his adult 
congregation filled it up — and one hundred and 
forty children were taught upon benches under 
the trees, because there was no room for the 
Sunday-school in the church. He was soon 
enabled to enlarge his building, and a respect- 
able, orderly, religious establishment has grown 
out of it. This is but a specimen of hundreds 
of similar history. 

In what cause can the Christian Church ex- 



APPROPRIATE EFFORTS. 179 

pend its funds, or extend its sympathies, more 
wisely and effectually ? To provide adequate 
books and means of teaching for a country like 
ours must demand a large outlay of money and 
effort. But no money can be expended more 
economically, or more effectually, for the wel- 
fare of our country or the salvation of our peo- 
ple. The work will demand united effort. 
But the means for this have been abundantly 
prepared by the same merciful Providence that 
has awakened and organized the scheme which 
demands them. . The American Sunday-school 
Union is a noble instrument for carrying the 
Gospel to the children of our wide-spread 
country, ready with its machinery and its 
abundant material — asking only the zeal and 
cooperation of the Churches, to extend a hun- 
dred-fold the blessed influence which it is 
already exerting in our nation. Almost every 
organized body of Christians has a union or 
society of its own, for a kindred purpose, 
mingling its own peculiarities of faith in a 
prismatic division of labor, with the pure ray 
of divine and simple salvation in the crucified 



180 APPROPRIATE EFFORTS. 

and exalted Son of God. I do not mean to 
contend with either or any of them. I would 
rather urge and encourage them all. But let 
the Church and the Churches arise and build 
— by either instrument by both ; by all — that 
w r e may serve and save our generation accord- 
ing to the w r ill of God. Let no demand for 
aid in the work be rejected from indifference 
to the object. Let the whole earnestness of 
Christian love and conviction be directed to 
this great purpose and its blessed results. Let 
the American Church determine that the chil- 
dren of America shall everywhere be taught 
the religion of their fathers, and that none 
shall be so scattered abroad that the mission- 
ary influence and effort of the Gospel shall not 
reach them. Let Christians delight to survey 
the field, the appropriateness of the instru- 
ment, the adaptation of the work to bless 
youth abroad, and. then consecrate their liber- 
ality, sympathies, labors, and prayers, in a 
generous arrangement and measure, to the 
prosperous extension of the Sunday-school en- 
terprise, in all its details of blessing, to the 
utmost borders of our country. 




XIX. 

PASTORAL DUTY. INFLUENCE OF SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. — INSTANCES. 

THE MINISTRY IN RELATION TO THIS WORK. INCIDENT 

AT JAFFA. 

)0 refer to the duties and obligations 
of the Church in relation to Sunday- 
schools, either as a local instrument 
or as a general cause, compels the con- 
sideration of another very important 
department of this great subject. You 
will surely anticipate me, in suggesting the re- 
lations and obligations of the ministry. The 
local Church, without its pastor, is but a body 
in action without its head. And the w T hole 
Church of the Lord, separated . from the lead- 
ing and cooperation of its appointed ministry, 
in any scheme of effort, must always be feeble 
and imperfect. I shall not diverge into any 
consideration of the powers of the ministry, or 
touch upon the various views which different 

16 



182 PASTORAL DUTY. 

bodies of Christians may cherish in regard to 
the official relation of the ministry to the 
Church. None will deny the general principle, 
that the pastoral office, in all its relations, is 
designed jto be leading, exemplary, and helpful 
to the Church of G-od, in the fulfillment of its 
great appointed work of glorifying Jesus in the 
publication and establishment of His Gospel 
among men. The description which the Holy 
Spirit gives us of this relation is adequate and 
complete — "When He ascended up on high, 
He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto 
men. And he g^ve, some apostles ; and some, 
prophets ; and some, evangelists ; and some, 
pastors and teachers ; for the perfecting of the 
saints, for the work of the ministry, for the 
edifying of the body of Christ/' — Eph. iv. 8. 
This is the ministry in its active and appro- 
priate operation ; and whatever becomes the 
obligation and duty of the Church, in extend- 
ing the knowledge of the Saviour's love, must 
be of necessity the coordinate obligation and 
duty of the ministry, in its relation as the 
earthly, but Divinely-appointed guide and 



INFLUENCE OF SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. 183 

helper of the Church, in the great work of its 
earthly station and responsibility. All the 
suggestions, which have been made, therefore, 
of the duty of the Church Jet this great and 
varied Sunday-school worl^Fbecome yet more 
effective and appropriate in application to the 
ministry, raisedf up for the very purpose of 
leading on the Church to usefulness and 
triumph. 

If we take our last most general view of the 
subject, I should ask my brethren in the min- 
istry to consider the importance of their re- 
sponsibility in relation to this. They can 
never be uninterested in a scheme of influence 
and labor of any kind which is to result, under 
the Divine blessing, in the salvation of many 
souls. The actual results of the Sunday- 
school work in the course of its past history 
should be a subject of study and earnest con- 
sideration. I can not doubt that its influence 
in arresting the power of imported evil, and 
resulting propagation of crime, in our country, 
has been a chief element in the peace of the 
nation, and a power whose extent it would be 



184 INFLUENCE OF SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. 

impossible for us to trace completely. The 
torrent of youthful debasement and immoral- 
ity, of cultivated ignorance and infidelity, 
which has poured in upon us for these many 
years ; has found no agent of resistance or re- 
moval equal to this. Millions of children of 
the poor would have grown to maturity in 
hopeless depravity, during the last twenty-five 
years of heavy immigration of the toiling pop- 
ulation of the European world upon our scat- 
tered people, but for the blessed efforts of our 
Sunday-schools. A gracious Providence has 
appeared to prepare our great religious insti- 
tutions, all of which find their best and most 
effective contact with the people through the 
Sunday-school, as a special depository of Di- 
vine agency and power for the safety and wel- 
fare of our land at this very time. The Bibles, 
and tracts, and books which are made ready 
for effective usefulness, are carried by our 
Sunday-schools directly to the very minds, 
which are taught to value them, and made 
able to read them to advantage. No intel- 
ligent observer can go through the Sunday- 



INFLUENCE OF SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. 185 

schools of this nation, including three millions 
•of children or more, without discovering that 
more than one-half are of a parentage and 
national extraction which would have doomed 
I them to ignorance and left them to perish in 
debasement and neglect. The children them- 
selves habitually rejoice in these privileges. 
They breathe a free air with delight. They 
love to be taught the Word of God ; and to 
learn the voice of prayer and praise. Within 
the last twenty-four hours, while I write, one 
of my teachers has reported to me a visit to a 
poor German Jewish family in our neighbor- 
hood. The father, who is a butcher, refused 
to hear or receive any tract or invitation to 
the school or church, and the teacher departed. 
A little boy, his son, who was sitting by, fol- 
lowed the teacher to the next house, and begged 
him to take him to the Sunday-school. The 
father consented to the boy's wish, and another 
child of ignorance will, by God's blessing, be 
reclaimed and taught His Word. This same 
day another teacher has given me an account 
of a group of Roman Catholic children, whom 

16* 



186 THE MINISTRY 

she had been teaching. They were happy and 
improving, learning their Bible stories and 
hymns with joy. They were, however, removed 
against their earnest desire, and placed at 
Popish schools. Some had been so unhappy 
that they had returned. But they had been 
taught nothing in their absence but some of 
the superstitions and errors of their corrupt 
faith, in which they felt no interest. There 
are millions of such children in our land, for 
whom there is no other available or effective 
instrument of instruction and improvement 
but the Sunday-school. This blessed instru- 
ment now meets them in every town and city, 
and even far off in their rovings and settle- 
ments in the wilderness. It becomes to them 
the present living agent of Gospel teaching 
and Scriptural truth. It is intelligible, im- 
mediate, and accessible to them all. What 
can supply its place ? What could fulfill its 
work if left by it undone ? 

How incalculably blessed and useful is this 
work to these myriads of the poor and the neg- 
lected ! How certain is its influence for the 



IN RELATION TO THIS WORK. 187 

welfare of our nation and the prosperity of the 
Church of God among us ! I can not but ap- 
peal to the ministry of the Churches to take 
hold of it, and encourage it ; and carry it for- 
ward to a successful triumph. By whatever 
agency of propagation they may prefer to act, 
is it not their highest interest and duty to 
work by it, and with it, for the great purpose 
of general evangelization for which it is de- 
signed, and in which it has been so successful ? 
Surely the Church never can go forward ade- 
quately in this work, unless the ministry take 
the lead. Their opinion, their words of en- 
couragement and appeal,- their personal and 
pastoral influence, given in their appropriate 
measure to the effort, insure its success — and 
encourage the judgments and the liberal action 
Df the Churches committed to them in this re- 
lation. They sow the seeds of Divine benev- 
olence in a multitude of minds, which may 
bring forth much and long-continued fruit, 
abounding to the Saviour's glory in this rela- 
tion. I would by no means prescribe the 
mode of their action. Whether they shall 



188 INCIDENT AT JAFFA. 

open their pulpits to appointed agents, for the 
special pleading of the cause, or choose them- 
selves to be the advocates of a cause in which 
their own minds and hearts have become en- 
listed ; — whether they shall make public stated 
or occasional collections for the promotion of 
this cause in the congregation, or open the way 
by personal recommendations, for private and 
individual appeals, are points of machinery and 
discipline which must be left entirely to their 
own judgment and choice. I only plead for 
their interest in the cause itself, and their 
earnest cooperation to extend it. I beg them 
to give their minds and hearts to this work, as 
a great national and evangelical work, beyond 
the bounds of their own congregations, and 
the limits of their own neighborhood ; — to 
consider whether there is any othefcomparable 
instrument to bless the children of the nation, 
to forestall the power of evil, and to direct the 
little streams of the water of life to the very 
roots of the young and thriving plants of the 
future orchards of the land. The thought re- 
minds me of a beautiful fact which I witnessed 



INCIDENT AT JAFFA. 189 

in the luxuriant orange gardens of Jaffa. A 
large stream of water issued from a cistern in 
a yard inclosed with a high wall. u A foun- 
tain sealed, a spring shut up ; a garden in- 
closed/' (Song iv. 12.) I followed it as it 
branched off, amidst the orange, citron, and 
lemon trees which covered many acres around. 
It ran in diverging streams, in . multiplied 
channels. Each one ended at last where a 
single man was tending it with his bare foot, 
and directing it to the root of every single tree 
in succession. The skill with which he man- 
aged it was beautiful. The efficacy of the ap- 
plication was most remarkable. The manage- 
able nature of the power of life, as he applied 
it, was very affecting. How like Moses' de- 
scription, Deut. xi. 10 : " Where thou so west 
thy seed, and waterest it with thy foot, as a 
garden of herbs !" How like the actual Di- 
vine arrangements for bringing the water of 
life to individual souls ! How precisely like the 
Sunday-school effort for this purpose above all 
other arrangements besides ! How many of 
my brethren are like the man at the wheel of 



190 INCIDENT AT JAFFA. 

the cistern, in the garden inclosed, command- 
ing a settled power in a flourishing and estab- 
lished Church. Oh ; let them send out the 
stream beyond the walls ! Fresh, growing 
trees, promising future fruit, are standing 
there in crowds. Agents of fidelity and skill 
are standing also there, waiting to direct the 
living water to every single plant, hidden in 
the multitude. The life-giving stream will 
bestow its joys and blessings upon millions, 
from whom future fruit in grace and glory 
shall be gathered. The Great Head of the 
living Church will find the joy and the glory 
His as He makes His gracious visits to His 
heavenly garden in the earth. They may 
themselves also partake of the joy and the 
glory in personal visits to the results of their 
work. " I went down into the garden of nuts, 
to see the fruits of the valley ; to see whether 
the vine flourished, and the pomegranates 
budded/' They may also find the testimony 
true : " Or ever I was aware, my soul set me 
on the chariots of a willing people/' (Song 
vi. 12.) No labor can be more surely remu- 



INCIDENT AT JAFFA. 191 

nerative to tliein — none more honorable to the 
Lord whom they serve. Dear brethren, let 
our hearts and minds be these "chariots 'of 
Amminadib/' in this blessed work ; let us act- 
ively send forth our streams of blessing through 
all the land ; and " sow our seed beside ail 
waters." It will be a glorious work for Christ. 
It will be a blessed work for perishing souls. 
It will be a joyful work for us. It will be 
a happy work for our nation. It will be a 
crown for our eternity. 




XX. 

THE MINISTRY. — PASTORAL CARE. — NEGLECT. — PERSONAL SU- 
PERINTENDENCE. — VALUE TO THE PASTOR. 

)HE reciprocal relations between the 
Sunday-school and the Church have 
presented us several topics for consid- 
eration. Not the least important of 
these is the one which occupied my 
last — the proper relations of the ministry to 
the Sunday-school. The extended view which 
we took in the last letter, is of vast conse- 
quence. The influence of the Christian min- 
istry in this country is very great. It is not 
merely the influence of official position, which 
maintains its hereditary hold among us, not- 
withstanding all the modern attempts to un- 
dermine and destroy it among the multitude of 
our people. But it is also the far greater in- 
fluence of demonstrated ability, education, pu- 
rity of character, earnestness, and prudence, in 



THE MINISTRY. 193 

the gijeat body of the ministers of all the 
Churches, transmitted and perpetuated as the 
abiding characteristics of the American Church. 
I am fully convinced no nation shows a minis- 
try more independent, more exemplary, or more 
respected among the people for whom they la- 
bor. To gain their influence, therefore, in any 
walk of benevolent effort, is of great consequence 
to its power and success. Our Churches will not 
be led to that enlarged and earnest plan of 
thought and action in the Sunday-school cause 
which its importance demands, unless the min- 
istry of the Churches assume their place in 
leading on the undertaking, to the utmost of 
their ability to excite and maintain it. For 
this reason, I am earnestly desirous to awaken 
and encourage, if I could have power to do so, 
the eager and persevering cooperation of the 
ministry in the great general cause, as al- 
ready laid out. But I am persuaded this will 
only grow as the fruit of a more direct and 
personal connection w T ith the work, in their 
separate, individual fields of labor. The neg- 
lect of the local schools of their own Churches 
17 



194 PASTORAL CABE. 

can produce no earnestness or willingness for a 
united effort to spread this system and agency 
of blessings abroad for the benefit of others 
unseen and unknown. 

It would seem almost derogatory to the 
character, and suspicious of the sincerity, of a 
minister of the Gospel, to urge him to a pasto- 
ral care of his own Sunday-school, or to ask 
whether such a pastoral care is really given. 
And yet from the multiplied information I have 
received^I am persuaded the subject, in its most 
local relation, has received far less attention 
than its importance claims. Doubtless there 
are cases in which the pressure of a large city 
Church, with all its various interests and calls, 
may seem to consume all the energies and time 
of a pastor, and furnish the apparently ade- 
quate excuse for inattention to the Sunday- 
school. But I apprehend the difficulty is not 
found more habitually in our large city 
Churches than in others of a much more lim- 
ited character. Not long since, I was visiting 
in a beautiful country village, extremely com- 
pact, where every family cpuld hear their 



NEGLECT. 195 

church-bell — and the perfect quietness of the 
Sabbath morning seemed' to woo the kindest 
pastoral attention to every class of the people. 
A beautiful little church edifice was there — a 
congregation perhaps of two hundred people — 
and a struggling Sunday-school of sixty or 
seventy children, maintained by a few youthful 
Christians of both sexes. The answers to my 
questions presented the fact, that for months 
together, the pastor, who lived within the hear- 
ing of the very singing of the children, did not 
enter the school, paid no personal attention to 
its condition or its wants, and in no way of 
apparent personal effort attempted to promote 
its success. And yet this minister was a relig- 
ious and exemplary man, and in his conversa- 
tion seemed alive to the reality and importance 
of his own work, and the religious needs of his 
people. It was surety an unaccountable neg- 
lect. But it could be paralleled by hundreds 
of cases. And when, in this case, the com- 
plaint was made to me of the smallness of the 
salary, of the indifference of the people, of the 
coldness of their religious state, etc., it was 



196 PERSONAL SUPERINTENDENCE. 

only astonishing to me that the good man was 
incompetent to see the root of the whole diffi- 
culty in himself. If such a man would take 
hold of his work personally, earnestly, and give 
himself to it, and, most of all, to this most im- 
portant part of it, he would find his wilderness 
to blossom as the rose. " Like priest, like peo- 
ple/' will be found a governing rule in all these 
relations. 

Do you ask me what I would have such a 
man to do ? I answer without hesitation, 
Take the personal charge and superintendence 
of his own Sunday-school. Give his mind, 
and time, and presence, and actual labor to the 
work of saving and teaching the children of 
his flock. What else should he do ? His 
whole congregation might be visited with 
abounding leisure every month. Every family 
in his Church would probably be heard of by 
him in some way every week.. His grand diffi- 
culty is want of work — and he is rusting out 
from having no adequate employment. And 
yet with every thing wasting and dying around 
him, this very man lamented that he had no 



PERSONAL SUPERINTENDENCE. 197 

field for his powers, and that the openings for 
the ministry were most inequitably distributed. 
The skipper of a schooner on which every rope 
was sagging, and her very masts reeling from 
his own lethargy and negligence, complaining, 
as he lay smoking on the cluttered deck, that 
great injustice had been done him in not mak- 
ing him the commander of a seventy-four ! 
Surely the apostle well says, that those who 
"purchase for themselves a good degree and 
great boldness in the faith which is in Christ 
Jesus/' are they who " have used the office of 
a minister well." What possible hinderance is 
there in any moderate Church to the minister 
taking the personal charge and superintendence 
of the Sunday-school of his own Church ? I 
say " moderate Church," but I might justly 
say any Church, for I am persuaded it is a per- 
fectly feasible and a most appropriate work for 
every pastor in every Church. Such an ar- 
rangement brings the whole subject and inter- 
est of Sunday-school instruction under his own 
eye, enables him to see how far the important 

work is adequately done, gives him the oppor- 
17* 



198 VALUE TO THE PASTOR. 

tunity of a personal direction and control of 
the operation, and of a fair and easy correction 
of the errors and mistakes perceived. It makes 
him alive to the vast influence and interests of 
the scheme ; awakens his own heart more and 
more to the cultivation of personal, practical 
religion among the young ; gives him a deeper 
interest in their welfare and happiness ; and 
prepares him for more minute and enlarged in- 
fluence in his own relation to them, and to the 
families to which they belong. It inspires the 
teachers with new zeal and love in their work 
— awakens a lasting personal affection and con- 
fidence toward himself — unites them about 
him as a body of friends beloved, and gives en- 
ergy and spirit to the operation as it j)roceeds. 
It brings him into immediate personal connec- 
tion with the children of his flock — makes him 
a helper of their joy, and a partner of their 
welfare — opens their hearts to his ministry, 
and attracts them to himself. It establishes 
unquestioned authority in the school, secures 
its order, and gives a new reverence from teach- 
ers and children to the superintendent's place 



VALUE TO THE PASTOR. 199 

and position. It imparts a practical and effec- 
tive character to the minister's own work, gives 
him more and more an adaptation to the busi- 
ness of his ministry, and makes him more effi- 
cient and real in every other department of his 
duty. It is the very manufacture, which the 
raw material of a multitude of ministers re- 
quires to transform them into useful, appropri- 
ate, and practical agents in the Lord's house. 
It mortalizes their ministry, by bringing them 
down to a practical shape and compelling the 
cultivation of a common-sense habit of teach- 
ing and address. It converts their abstractions 
into realities, and by making them the " teach- 
ers of babes " makes them the more intelligible 
and useful teachers for all. " When will min- 
isters cease to try to feed their sheep out of 
horse-racks ?" said a plain man once to me, in 
expressing his dissatisfaction with a sermon 
which he could not understand. Well, when 
will thoy ? Never, I think, until they fulfill 
the ?,€€ond neglected command, "Feed my 
laml ?.* y la no way will a pastor become more 
alive Co the real necessities and condition of his 



200 VALUE TO THE PASTOR. 

flock, than in this personal devotion to the 
ministry of the children's church. It puts him 
into immediate and easy communication with 
them all. It enables him to reach the affec- 
tions and sympathies of the adults, through 
these happiest and most accessible channels. 
It thus binds the whole flock together, and 
produces -and maintains abiding harmony and 
mutual affection among all. And whether I 
consider the effects upon the school, upon the 
teachers, upon the children, upon the families, 
upon the congregation, or upon himself, I must 
say that no employment in the ministry ap- 
pears to me more real in spirit, more promising 
in character, or richer in results, than this per- 
sonal engagement of the pastor as the actual 
head of his Sunday-school. What rich bless- 
ings flow from it upon all, none i)ut they who 
have most thoroughly tried it can really tell. 
And I am sure that no minister who really 
loves his Master's work, and wishes to follow 
his Master's pattern, will voluntarily sacrifice 
the reciprocated blessings thus presented, when 
he has once made a fair experiment of the 



, VALUE TO THE PASTOR. 201 

work. Thus will the pastor share the reality 
of his interest in this blessed effort, and awake 
to the importance of extending it as widely 
and as efficiently as possible in the world 
abroad. 



XXI. 

THE MINISTRY.-— SUPERINTENDENCE OF SCHOOLS. — PERSONAL 
VISITING. — LECTURES FOR TEACHERS AND CHILDREN. 

HAVE earnestly advocated the assump- 
tion by the pastor of the superintend- 
ence of his own Church school. I 
believe this to be for himself, for the 
school, for the children, and for the 
Church, in all respects, the best plan. 
I deem it in reality one of the most important 
parts of his whole work in the ministry. The 
pastor who can be the most successful instru- 
ment of guiding and blessing the children of 
his flock, in the ways of religion and truth, 
will be in the highest degree and scale a per- 
manent blessing to the Church and the world. 
And as the Sunday-school has been so clearly 
displayed as the Church for children, the 
adapted and appropriate instrument of teach- 



THE MINISTRY. 203 

ing and blessing for them — the most intimate, 
intelligent, and authoritative relation in which 
the minister can stand to this, is the most de- 
sirable and important for himself as for them. 
In our smaller Churches, whether in town or 
country, there can be no difficulty in carrying 
out this plan completely. And abounding 
blessings would flow from it, on every side, to 
all concerned. In our larger Churches I am 
aware that many ministers imagine it a labor 
beyond their power or, strength. In some 
cases it may be so. I should be most unwilling 
to urge unnecessary or impossible burdens 
upon the ministry. Their toils and duties, if 
adequately carried out, are abundant, and 
often overwhelming. But I would suggest, 
could not a wiser husbandry of time and a 
more methodical arrangement of labor, gain 
for them the strength and opportunity which 
such a work as this requires ? If not, is not 
the work itself so important and desirable that 
some other occupation less directly bearing 
upon the welfare of redeemed souls might be 
yielded for the sake of it ? Far from being 



204 SUPERINTENDENCE OF SCHOOLS. 

an excessive fatigue, it would be found a re- 
freshment and an encouraging aid for the pub- 
lic services of the Sabbath's worship. The 
more cordially and faithfully it shall be carried 
out, the more deeply will a faithful minister 
find himself interested and engaged in it. It 
will come to be in his view one of the most 
desirable, as well as one of the most effective 
parts of his ministry. And it can by no 
means be considered irrelevant or unrequired, 
for one who is to give himself wholly to the 
work of the ministry — to continue in its labors 
—to be as a gentle nurse among the children 
of his flock, and so affectionately desirous of 
them that he is willing -to impart unto them, 
not the Gospel of God only, but also his own 
life, because they are dear unto him. The 
more an earnest pastor labors in this work, 
only the more will he desire to spend and be 
spent therein, that by all means he may save 
some. 

But it is also objected, that certain ministers 
have no adaptation of taste or character for 
such a work as this. I can only say, if they 



SUPERINTENDENCE OF SCHOOLS. 205 

have no love for children, and no desire espe- 
cially to bless them, they are manifestly want- 
ing in a most important characteristic of the 
Saviour's example, and an indispensable quali- 
fication for a useful and successful ministry. 
If it is a fault of the heart, or of the deliberate 
judgment, in this relation, they must forfeit a 
precious field and department of usefulness, 
and render reasonably doubtful their useful- 
ness in any other field of pastoral duty. If it 
be a defect of habit and education, the very 
practice is to teach them a more important les- 
son in the ministry than they have yet learned. 
Nothing appears more offensive to intelligent 
and reasonable men than an affectation of 
peculiar learning, in the employment of high- 
sounding words or far-reaching allusions in the 
ministry of the Gospel. The New Testament 
seems to say to ministers, on every page, in 
the words and examples of its great Founder 
and His apostles, " Be simple/' Our own in- 
comparable translation has transferred this 
very simplicity of utterance for the common 

use of the poor and the ignorant. And the 
18 



206 SUPERINTENDENCE OF SCHOOLS. 

minister who wishes to be wiser and grander 
than the New Testament, will find himself 
just so much less acceptable to the most in- 
telligent portion of his flock. The relations 
of his ministry to the children w T ill be the 
very lesson which he needs. And the habit of 
dealing with them, and providing for them ; 
and watching over them, will furnish the very 
supply of feeling, power, and adaptation in 
which such a man finds himself to be deficient. 
His heart, his mind, and his habits will all 
grow rapidly and healthfully under such an 
exercise and employment as the Sunday-school 
gives him, for greater and more permanent use- 
fulness in other departments of his duty as 
ivell as in this. Unity and harmony will reign 
ander his administration in this work. The 
Sunday-school teachers will welcome him, and 
labor with him with delight. They will com- 
bine to reverence his character, to repose upon 
his sincerity, to delight in their relations to 
him, and to be his chosen, earnest, and faith- 
ful friends. The reciprocal effect upon the 
ministry and the school will be equally val- 



PERSONAL VISITING. 207 

liable. And the whole garden of the Lord 
which he has been set to cultivate will revive 
and flourish under this extending and practi- 
cal influence of his personal labors in every 
department of his divinely appointed work. 

If, after all, the minister really can not un- 
dertake the actual charge and superintendence 
of the Sunday-school, can he not habitually 
visit it, and become personally acquainted with 
its operations and its needs ? What shall 
hinder his giving an hour of every Sabbath to 
a personal observation of the work ? Let him 
thus oversee the superintendence of another, 
and become personally familiar with the teach- 
ers and the details of the operation, as they 
are managed in his sight. He will thus be- 
come acquainted with the several ability and 
adaptation of the teachers. He will see who 
are really useful in their work, and likely to be 
his effective adjuncts in ministering the Gos- 
pel to the youth of his flock. He will be able 
to advise the superintendent in reference to 
many important facts and methods of useful- 
ness, as they arise before him. For what is 



208 LECTURES FOR TEACHERS 

the whole school but a part of his responsi- 
bility in the ministry? And what are super- 
intendents and teachers, but parts of his min- 
istry, severally carrying out his work, and 
helpers of his joy ? This regular Sabbath 
visitation will be an eminent blessing to the 
school and to himself. He will learn much, 
and he will be able to teach much in the prac- 
tical efficiency of his ministry from this habit, 
which can be acquired nowhere else. To neg- 
lect this is mere negligence of duty. The 
minister may as well say he has no time to 
preach, or visit the suffering and the sick, the 
fatherless and the widows in their affliction. 
For what has he been sent into the world, and 
raised up in the Church, and received the 
Lord's commission, and assumed the care and 
teaching of those for whom the Saviour died ? 
How can any part of the work of the Gospel 
flourish under the labors of a man so heartless, 
so indifferent, so indolent, or so secularized in 
mind and spirit ? 

Can not the minister give the teachers of his 
Sunday-school a weekly instruction upon the 



AND CHILDREN. 209 

subject of their teaching ? Let it be a lecture, 
or a Bible-class, or a teachers' meeting, in 
whatever way organized and arranged. Some 
special hour devoted to their work he can 
surely give. And he surely ought to give it. 
Has he no adaptation or acquirement for this 
either ? What can he do that more truly be- 
longs to his pastoral office ? At any rate, he 
is supposed to have studied the scriptures 
more thoroughly . than the youthful and busy 
teachers who are gathered around him. If 
not, then it will be a blessed employment for 
him to meet and study an hour a week with 
them. Thus they may grow together in a 
knowledge of that word of inspiration which 
is able to make them wise unto salvation, 
through faith in Christ Jesus. 

Can not the pastor habitually or occasion- 
ally preach the Gospel especially and person- 
ally to the young ? How much of public 
preaching is utterly unintelligible and useless 
to them ? Often, necessarily, of subjects be- 
yond their reach. Often, unnecessarily, in 

language which they can not comprehend. If 
18* 



210 LECTURES FOR TEACHERS 

this must be so ; in much of the public teach- 
ing of the pulpit, can there not be special 
teaching adapted to their capacities and wants ? 
There is here no additional labor imposed, no 
excessive demand made upon time too occupied, 
or energies too much taxed, or minds too full 
of other duties. If every pastor would give 
one sermon on every Sunday, especially ad- 
dressed to the young, and designed and pre- 
pared to teach them, he would find himself 
enlarging his direct usefulness in this particu- 
lar work, and equally advancing the value and 
benefit of every other class of his public and 
private labors in religious instruction also. 
The parents and adults of his flock will learn 
as much, and love as much the teaching for 
themselves, when he speaks fe the youth 
directly and simply, as when he addresses them 
in a deeper and more mature discourse. 

I hope I shall not be censured as having said 
too much upon this special branch of the sub- 
ject before us. I can not understand how any 
Christian minister can feel himself excused 
from a personal, practical consideration of this 



AND CHILDREN. 211 

great part of his appointed work. Whatever 
is to be given up, the pastor who follows in 
the steps of his Master must not give up the 
children. The Sunday-school everywhere feels 
the want of the mind of the ministry in its 
welfare — a real pastoral devotion to its success. 
The pastor must be its living, actual head. It 
should constantly receive the stimulus and en- 
couragement of his presence and his example. 
He should have the sweet solace of the chil- 
dren's relation to him, a comfort to his wearied 
spirit. The minister deprived of this loses one 
of the most precious of the pleasures of his 
work. And I can not but earnestly entreat 
the affectionate and serious contemplation of 
my brethren in the ministry to the whole sub- 
ject in its relations to themselves, which I 
have attempted to suggest. 




XXII. 

DUTY OF SCHOOLS TO THE CHURCH. — CHURCH TEACHING. — 
CHURCH RELATIONS. — VALUE OF THEM TO CHILDREN. 

^HE duties of the Church to the Sunday- 
school will necessarily suggest the re- 
sulting consideration of the reciprocal 
duties of the Sunday-school to the 
Church. Let us not forget that on 
each side they are both but secondary 
instruments, and the real duty of both is to 
the Great Head and Lord of the Church. 
' From love and faithfulness to Christ, the 
Church is to be loving and faithful to the 
lambs of the flock, and maintainTand extend 
the Sunday-school in all its interests and 
claims for their benefit. And from the same 
love and faithfulness to Christ the Saviour of 
the whole body, are the teachers of the Sun- 
day-school to be faithful to the Church of 
God, whose members and agents they are in 



DUTY OF SCHOOLS TO THE CHURCH. 213 

the Lord's work. They are employed for the 
special and very important work of educating 
the children of the Church for its service and 
privileges, that in them, as a seed to serve 
Him, the Lord Jesus may be glorified in His 
Church. In this relation there must be, as an 
indispensable purpose in the Sunday-school, 
the cultivation of a spirit of peaceful and affec- 
tionate fellowship with the Church to which 
the school belongs, and a just submission to 
its higher authority and welfare. A narrow, 
sectarian temper in any Christian, I trust I 
shall be the last to inculcate upon any. But 
we can not take any other ground, with a good 
conscience, than that our several Church con- 
nections are the subject of providence in God, 
and of reasonable and adequate choice and de- 
termination in ourselves. In giving a reason 
for the hope that is in us, we ought not to 
hide the facts that we are where we are in the 
household of faith, for sufficient cause, and 
with sincere affection. Whatever our Church 
may be, we have an allegiance to it, and must 
maintain a due regard to its authority, and a 



214 DUTY OF SCHOOLS TO THE CHURCH. 

proper consideration for its welfare and success. 
The Sunday-school must always consider itself 
a part of the Church, and cultivate a relation 
of harmony and submission in this connection. 
Any starting of an independent authority, or 
setting up of a new republic in its manage- 
ment, will not only be most unseemly, and out 
of due order, but in most cases counteract 
much of the good which the school is likely 
to accomplish. The pastor's presence, guid- 
ance, and control must be always welcomed. 
The manifest plan must include him, and de- 
mand him ; and if he be unfaithful or negli- 
gent in this precious field of his privilege and 
responsibility, he must not be permitted to 
offer as an excuse the assumed or practical in- 
dependence of the school of his authority and 
influence. I have been amazedTto find how 
often and how unreasonably such jealousies 
have arisen among the ministry. I have seen 
some instances of very childish and absurd 
sensitiveness upon this point in ministers, who 
should have felt themselves quite superior to 
such a thought. And yet I have also seen 



DUTY OF SCHOOLS TO THE CHURCH. 215 

schools and teachers far from faultless in this 
relation, claiming for tlfemselves an indepen- 
dent authority and right of direction, and even 
foolishly refusing and withstanding the affec- 
tionate and fraternal approach of a pastor in 
his desire to assist and encourage them. It is 
vain to expect the dews of heaven in an atmos- 
phere like this. The ministry of the Gospel 
must be regarded and acknowledged as set up 
for the teaching of the Church of God. And 
all the agencies and instruments of religious 
teaching in the Church must be considered as 
part of their work, and as directly responsible 
to them, in whom this whole responsibility of 
teaching is placed. So far as schools are con- 
nected with Churches, there can be no doubt 
upon this subject. And even in schools which 
are established on an independent foundation 
in the necessity of their origin, we have already 
seen, there will arise a Church connection and 
a ministry which will soon settle the position 
here also. 

That much depends upon a loving and har- 
monious spirit in our Sunday-school labors for 



216 CHUKCH TEACHING. 

their success and happiness, it would be vain 
to deny. Let teachers^ above all things, avoid 
a separatist and self-exalting spirit, and try to 
feel that not he who commendeth himself is 
approved in this respect, but he whom the 
Lord commendeth. Let children be brought 
up as parts of the household of the faith — not 
indifferent to their Church relations — and by 
no means taught that it is *6f no consequence 
where they belong and to whom they belong, 
or where their Sabbath worship may be em- 
ployed, so that they are really and truly in 
heart belonging to the Lord. The cultivation 
of each individual estate thoroughly and well, 
is the best cultivation for the highest prosper- 
ity of the whole country in which they all are. 
And the faithful care and watchfulness in 
every Church over all its collective interests 
and welfare, is, beyond all question, the wisest 
and happiest way to promote the universal 
welfare and happiness of the Lord's cause on 
the earth. I feel this of special value and 
truth in our Sunday-schools. It is a second- 
ary fact in importance, but far from an unim- 



- CHURCH RELATIONS. 217 

portant one, to attach children in their affec- 
tions and habits to the Church of their inherit- 
ance. The tendrils of youthful religion must 
clasp a near and adequate support. Their 
early piety demands the aid and nursing of 
the outward connection. And I should far 
rather see them trained in their attachment 
to a body much less desirable in my view ; than 
brought up in the more general ignorance and 
skepticism of the value of Church relations, 
and left to be driven by the wild winds of fu- 
ture controversy, to attach themselves, or to 
become attached, as may happen, to whatever 
shall be most convenient, or run the more 
likely hazard of living and dying loose from all. 
True Christian liberty allows every one to be 
fully persuaded in his own mind. But then 
it does allow him to be fully persuaded. And 
no process is more likely to be successful, and 
no sight is more beautiful, than to see the 
youth of a flock trained in happy regularity 
and devotion in the worship and principles, 
and affectionate maintenance of the Church tp 
which they belong. Vain and most unprofit- 

19 



218 CHURCH RELATIONS, 

able is the Neapolitan plan of promiscuous 
dwelling in the streets. Let us maintain and 
cany out the simple Protestant Christian 
scheme of loving all who love the Lord Jesus 
Christ in sincerity, but walking ourselves by 
the rule which we have attained, and minding 
the thing which we have been taught. This, 
I think, the Sunday-school of every Church 
should distinctly regard. And, therefore, I 
urge, as a first principle of reciprocal obliga- 
tion, this cultivation of a conscious and ac- 
knowledged union with the Church on which 
it lives and from which it grows. 

I should be sorry to be considered as giving 
this subject undue consequence. But I esteem 
its practical influence very valuable. That 
our little ones shall grow up in affectionate 
relations with all these outward facts and 
agencies of their enjoyment of Gospel teaching, 
I have already spoken of as among the impor- 
tant, actual advantages of our whole scheme. 
And to me, certainly, one of the highest pleas- 
ures of my life is to see generations of youth 
growing up around me, who learned to love 



VALUE OF THEM TO CHILDREN 219 

me and my ministry in their infancy, and ad- 
here to me and encompass me as faithful ad- 
juvants in their early maturity and age. 
Pleasant as are all additions to the Lord's 
table among us, I should be obliged to confess 
that none seem so pleasant as those of the 
children who have grown up with me, and 
seem thus to be the fruits of my past toils, 
. and tenderness, and prayer. Beautiful are the 
blossoms and fruit beheld growing in every or- 
chard. But it is not in man, and it ought not 
to be, not to rejoice with peculiar joy in the 
special fruitfulness of trees which his own hand 
has planted and tended, and the oncoming of 
which his grateful and hopeful eye has watched 
with delight in all the years of their advance- 
ment. I can not but say it is far from indif- 
ferent to me that my Sunday-school children 
should be Episcopalians, and continue and 
grow as members of St. George's Church, and 
that I should still find them bringing forth 
fruit in my age. Accordingly, while there is 
the common, all-important Gospel teaching 
for all, there may be, with great propriety, the 



220 VALUE OF THEM TO CHILDREN. 

additional, distinctive, positive teaching for 
each, of attachment to their own Church and 
school. Adams of Wintringham, when re- 
proached by his neighbors that his church was 
filled by drawing off from them', simply replied, 
" Salt your sheep, brethren, and they will not 
stray/' Thus are our Sunday-schools to min- 
ister to our flocks by furnishing attractions as 
well as instructions to our lambs. They are 
the nursery of the family, and are to make 
their little charge happy in their home, loving 
their home, and grateful to abide at home. 
In this w r ay the Sunday-school becomes an 
important aid to the Church in the individual 
connection, and equally so in the extending of 
the great cause. Our youth grow up with a 
Church spirit as well as a Christian spirit. 
The future Churches of the nation rise up in 
an intelligent and consolidated power. The 
various portions of the Lord's house grow and 
flourish under the influence and agency of this 
whole work, and successive generations show 
the importance and value of the influence in 
the strength and vigor of the result perpetu- 



VALUE OF THEM TO CHILDREN. 221 

atecl. The Church reaps the blessing from 
the school in the enlarged and generous action, 
as well as in the intelligent and affectionate 
support of its members thus taught. And in 
the true and abiding prosperity of the Churches 
of the Lord, the Lord Jesus, the Head of the 
whole Church, is Himself glorified and hon- 
ored. I had not thought to have said so much 
of this point when I began ; but it has grown 
upon my hands as I have written, I hope not 
unreasonably, and postpones some other lines 
of thought to my next. 

19* 



XXIII. 

DUTY OF TEACHEKS. — CATECHISMS. — THE BIBLE THE BOOK FOR 
SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHING. 

HOPE you will not think I have insisted 
too much on Church relations. I am 
sometimes disposed to fear that in our 
union efforts to spread the Gospel in 
■which my heart truly delights ; we may 
overlook the propriety and importance of 
maintaining in their due order our various 
Church lines ; and lose our family obligations, 
interests, and pleasures, in the more general ef- 
forts of social advancement or national patriot- 
ism. And yet we are by no means without 
dangers of sectarism on the other side, and 
must therefore strive to give to each their due 
and proportionate consideration, and try to love 
our Church and teach our children to love it, 
without teaching them or allowing them to 
love any other Christians less. In this special 



DUTY OF TEACHERS. 223 

connection comes the subject of Church cate- 
chisms as a Sunday-school exercise. We can 
not well avoid its consideration. In this I 
should again say, the Bible is our great book 
for Sunday-school instruction. Yet every class 
of Christians have organized and arranged their 
peculiar interpretations of Scripture teaching 
in catechisms, as compendiums of the Christian 
doctrines which are deemed by them of special 
importance. In some Sunday-schools the 
whole body of instruction is given in these se- 
lected catechisms. In others, perhaps, they 
may be entirely neglected. It is evident, how- 
ever, that two different rules must be laid 
down here in application to schools which be- 
long to particular Churches, and schools which 
are gathered and taught independently of all 
Church relations. In the latter, of which 
there are many, surely no catechism can be 
properly taught, unless it shall be some Scrip- 
ture catechism which includes merely the great 
evangelical doctrines and duties, in which the 
Scripture instruction is perfectly plain, and re- 
garding which there can be no reasonable dis- 



224 CATECHISMS. 

pute. In the former ; or Church-schools, it is 
equally clear that there may be a propriety and 
a reasonable obligation to give a fair considera- 
tion to the authorized and adopted catechism 
of the Church. While ; therefore, I am con- 
tent to yield a certain attention to these cate- 
chisms, I can never exalt them out of a merely 
subordinate place. In practical use, they are 
dull, unintelligible, and unattractive to chil- 
dren ; and it is always a burden on the minds of 
children to learn them, and a very dry and 
heavy work for teachers to teach or to expound 
them. I can never speak of them as in them- 
selves desirable. I have great doubts how far 
they are especially positively useful. I have 
no doubt that actual, simple Scriptural instruc- 
tion is far more so. And though I must yield 
the point of subordinate uniformity to Church 
appointment, in this reciprocal Church rela- 
tion, in Sunday-schools which belong to par- 
ticular Churches, and acknowledge a second- 
ary influence of these formularies in giving 
particular shapes of religious instruction as 
thus required ; I confess I write and speak 



CATECHISMS. 225 

even so much as this under the constraint of 
the idea of abstract obligation and not as the 
spontaneous language of my own experience. 
Though I have taken a small portion of the 
time, on one morning out of four, to teach and 
expound our Episcopal Church catechism, as, 
were I a Presbyterian minister, I should have 
done the Assembly's catechism, I can not re- 
call the avowals of opinion which I made some 
years since in Brooklyn at the New York State 
Convention of Sunday-school teachers, or ad- 
mit that any further experience has led me to 
change them. Then I said, " The great busi- 
ness of a Sunday-School teacher is conversion^ 
not catechisms, not confessions of faith. Our 
schools are to be Bible-schools, technically and 
entirely. A man may teach a child to repeat 
the catechism ten years over successively, and 
yet that child gain no spiritual idea. But no 
Christian man can take the 15th chapter of St. 
Luke and teach it to a little child, or to a fam- 
ily of children, without imparting influence 
that must and will produce its effect. I have 
no sympathy with that miserable scheme which 



226 THE BIBLE THE BOOK FOk 

would take away from you all that is vital and 
glorious in your work, and persuade you to be 
the mere agent of sectarian teaching. I will 
agree that when minds are better trained, and 
hearts are early drawn to the Saviour, cate- 
chisms and confessions may then be useful and 
instructive ; but God has never promised con- 
version to the Confession of F&ith, or to the 
Thirty-nine Articles, or to the Westminister 
Catechism ; nor can you find the word in the 
Bible, c Go teach the catechism, and whosever 
learneth it shall be saved/ The simple prin- 
ciple of the Bible is to teach the Bible. I have 
no disposition to shrink from the responsibility 
of every part of it. There is not a history 
which does not exhibit some spiritual truth, 
able to make wise unto salvation, through 
faith in Christ Jesus. There is "not a single 
narrative or fact which in the hands of a spir- 
itually-minded teacher will not be brought out 
as a definite instrumentality for the instruction 
and, if God shall please, the conversion of the 
soul." 

These were words freely spoken in an im- 



SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHING. 227 

promptu address. But the principle involved 
in them abides with me, confirmed and 
strengthened by continued and enlarged expe- 
rience. From a child are our children to know 
the Holy Scriptures, which are given by inspi- 
ration of G-od, and are profitable for them as 
for others, for doctrine, for reproof, for correc- 
tion, for instruction in righteousness. This 
wonderful book is always interesting, attrac- 
tive, and instructive. No children in our 
schools are too young to delight in its stories, 
or to comprehend the history and the love of 
that great Saviour in whom all its instructions 
meet. It never wearies their attention, or fails 
to awaken their conversation and their thoughts. 
Its language is the most intelligible, its narra- 
tions are the most simple and natural, its prin- 
ciples and truths are the most clear and easily 
comprehended, which can be given to the 
young. And the time expended in its study 
and its exposition in a well-ordered Sunday- 
school, is always found too short and too rapid 
for the great purpose to which it is devoted. 
The late Dr. James Alexander savs, in his let- 



228 THE BIBLE THE BOOK FOR 

ters to the editor of a Sunday-school journal, 
with equal truth and beauty, " Let me beg of 
you to take it as a-prominent, perpetual object 
of selections for your journal, to hold up the 
great truth that the Bible is the book to edu- 
cate the age. Why not have it the chief thing 
in the family, in the school, in the academy, in 
the university ? The day is coming ; and if 
you and I can introduce the minutest corner 
of this wedge, we shall be benefactors of the 
race. I can amuse a child about the Bible. I 
can teach logic, rhetoric, ethics, and salvation 
from the Bible. May we not have a Bible- 
school ? Sow the seed, my dear friend, meekly, 
prayerfully ; it must grow. The Bible, the 
Bible, it is this which must save America. It 
is this which must save the Church, not by 
spasmodic transitory attempts on emergencies, 
but by being a perennial well of divine truth. 
Don't try to vary the Bible language too much ; 
say what you will, it is most intelligible to chil- 
dren. Don't try too much to improve upon the 
Bible. Let what you add be explanatory and 
brief. You will readily see how my thoughts 



SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHING. 229 

course one another in the channel which but 
for Sunday-schools would never have existed 
for me. 1 more and more sicken at human di- 
lutions of the Word, and love the taste of the 
fresh fountain/' What could be more appro- 
priate than these expressions of that beloved 
and excellent man in the connection in which 
we now place them ? 

The book for the Sunday-schol is the Bible. 
Every portion of its history and its teaching 
should come up for study in its turn. Its va- 
rious parts must be made to illustrate and con- 
firm each other. Children must be familiar- 
ized with its use, and accustomed to refer to its 
various parts easily and freely. And even when 
catechisms are taught ; the proofs and author- 
ities should always be found and stated from 
the Scriptures themselves. Accordingly, the 
very first demand of a Sabbatli-school teacher 
is to be personally an assiduous reader of the 
Bible, and familiar with its language and con- 
tents. The general structure of its books — 
the succession of their contents — the special 
subjects particularly taught in each — the loca- 



230 THE BIBLE THE BOOK FOR 

tion of particular facts and stories — must all 
be made familiar to a teacher's mind by the 
habit of constant and attentive personal read- 
ing. The Church commits this Bible teaching 
of the young to Sunday-school teachers. The 
pastor watches over it,- assists it, expounds it, 
prepares for it. The teachers owe it as a re- 
ciprocal obligation to the Church to be quali- 
fied by familiar knowledge of the sacred book, 
to instruct with faithfulness and ease. This 
requires only a constant, earnest reading, with 
a desire and purpose to retain and understand. 
Some of our poorest Christians are often found 
mighty in the Scriptures. It has been often a 
great delight to me to meet the instances in 
proof of this. It does not demand peculiar 
talent or higher education. It requires only a 
love and knowledge of the Bible itself, a 
knowledge within the reach of the most bur- 
dened and laborious Christians in their earthly 
affairs, if a love of the Word be in the heart. 
And we may well ask Sunday-school teachers. 
How frequently do you read the Bible 
through ? How often have you ever read it 



SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHING. 231 

through ? How much do you really study it 
as a whole, with the desire and purpose to un- 
derstand it? This is fundamental in your 
work. It is endless as your privilege. If you 
really love it you will continue to study it only 
with increasing advantage and delight, and 
find no end thereof. 




XXIV. 

TEACHERS. — BIBLE TEACHING. — PREPARATION. — PRAYER. — 
ILLUSTRATION. — SIMPLICITY IN TEACHING. 

^HE Bible being our one book of habit- 
ual Sunday-school teaching, it is a 
very important and interesting ques- 
tion, how we are to teach it with 
effect. There is a skill to be acquired 
and employed in the use of this divine instru- 
ment ; the value of which is far beyond all the 
labor and thought which its acquisition will 
demand. . The teacher must " remember that 
although the conversion of his scholars can be 
accomplished by divine agency alone, it is for 
him to win their affections, captivate their 
tastes, improve their minds, convince their 
judgments, and impress their consciences. 
This is his work, and for its right performance 
he is responsible. With a deep sense of that 



BIBLE TEACHING. 233 

responsibility, let him diligently employ every 
means to qualify himself for his momentous 
duties. To earnest prayer let him unite earn- 
est labor, deeming no task too arduous, and no 
sacrifice too great to secure for each of his 
youthful charge an interest in the great salva- 
tion, and a place among the people of God."* 
Thus to teach the sacred Scriptures to advan- 
tage and with success must require much 
thought and preparation. 

The particular lesson must be previously 
studied with diligence and care. I have 
spoken enough of the general study of the 
Bible necessary as an habitual employment. 
This can not be relied upon as adequate for 
a particular lesson. None but those whose 
minds are fully devoted to Scriptural study, 
and in whom the engrafted Word is dwelling 
richly with all wisdom, can be qualified to 
take up a particular lesson and teach it with 
any effect. And they are habitually the very 
persons who will be least inclined to trust 



* Groser'a Illustrative Teaching. Randolph, New York, 
20* 



234 PREPARATION. 

themselves to any such general preparation. 
The particular lesson must be studied for the 
special occasion with all the means of assist- 
ance within the reach of the teacher. A good 
practical commentary, like Scott or Henry, is 
an important guide. The parallel references 
in Scott are an invaluable aid. Whatever can 
be brought to bear upon the selected passage 
for instruction becomes valuable in its degree. 
But the time and thought during the week 
must be conscientiously given to the study, 
and to the study of this particular passage. 
It is an unspeakable benefit for the teacher to 
gain a full and thorough understanding of even 
one selected passage of Scripture in the* week. 
Questions of every kind should be proposed to 
himself, for his own consideration and reply. 
The subjects which the passage contains should 
be brought forth in distinct points. Notes 
should be made as extensively as possible for 
the exposition of the portion in actual teach- 
ing. The mind and thought should be given 
to it ; as a subject -for personal consideration 
maturely and frequently. The habit of this 



PRAYER. 235 

will enlarge the mind of the teacher, and act 
as really and as effectually on his own attain- 
ments from the Scriptures as on the instruc- 
tions which he gives. I must consider this 
study indispensable ; indispensable to useful- 
ness to others — indispensable for personal sa- 
tisfaction in the work. An hour on Saturday 
evening, or a hurried glance over the questions 
appointed, is perfectly insufficient. And the 
want of this conscientious, earnest study is 
one grand reason of the want of interest in 
many classes, and the want of success in many 
teachers. 

The habit of daily, constant prayer in this 
connection must be maintained. It must be 
prayer for divine teaching. The humble, 
praying mind will be remarkably guided and 
taught in the study of the Scriptures. God 
has promised, and will never withhold, His 
9 Spirit and His wisdom from those who ask 
Him. The very habit of prayer gives utter- 
ance to the mouth for God. It domesticates 
the mind in the Word of God. It familiar- 
izes the thoughts and affections with its con- 



236 . PRAYER. 

templation. And often more effectually than 
all commentaries; will sincere prayer for guid- 
ance open the path, and clear up the difficul- 
ties perceived. It must "be special prayer for 
the children taught. The names of children 
must be habitually remembered and mentioned 
in prayer with special petitions for the peculiar 
blessings and mercies needed in their family 
relations, or their personal temptations and 
dangers. How much a teacher may in this 
way be made a blessing to the souls of chil- 
dren, none can tell. His private, secret pray- 
ers may bring salvation upon the house in 
which no common, and perhaps no secret 
prayer, is offered. We little remember the 
one all-applying text, "Ye have not because 
ye ask not/' Let a teacher think of this. 
Have I really asked ? How often ? For 
what ? With what perseverance ? It is a 
most precious part of a teacher's privilege and* 
office to be a living and effective intercessor 
for his little flock. And the richest blessings 
may descend upon them, carrying clown an in- 
fluence to other generations, and into an eter- 



ILLUSTRATION. 237 

nal world, through his private, secret suppli- 
cations. But such prayer must not be confined 
to a particular class. The whole body of 
teachers should feel themselves partners in 
prayer for the whole school in which they are 
engaged. The circle of private prayer should 
•surround the whole, and each should become 
the habitual intercessor for all. Thus divine 
mercies will descend upon all, and God will 
pour out His blessings upon all, while the 
united prayer shall return into the bosom of 
each. 

In the actual, practical teaching of a Bible 
lesson thus prepared by study and prayer, 
there is required peculiar tact and skill. Chil- 
dren are easily interested, but volatile in at- 
tention, and superficial in thought. And, 
therefore, their attention is not only to be se- 
cured by instructing address — but maintained 
by variety of teaching. Mere didactic, ab- 
stract instruction will not meet their wants. 
Still less a barren answer derived from them 
to particular questions prepared. The object 
is to interest their thoughts — to teach them 



238 ILLUSTEATIOX. 

and help them to think — to fasten the sub- 
ject of teaching upon their memory — and to 
give them some instruction which shall be per- 
manent and effectual. This is only to be done 
by a system of illustration, from every variety 
of source accessible to the teacher, and adapted 
to the minds of children. The whole system * 
of divine teaching in the Scripture is of this 
description. An endless variety of story and 
biography and comparison is employed there to 
make every truth more clear and manifest in 
its personal application to those for whom they 
are all proclaimed. And the preacher or 
teacher most of all confined to the mere Bible 
without note or comment for study, will habit- 
ually become in the very pattern of the Bible, 
the most disposed and ready to illustrate its 
truths by comparisons and facts bearing them 
out. An anecdote read, or a fact witnessed, 
really carrying out the particular point of 
teaching in the lesson, is always effectual and 
impressive. These facts should bear upon the 
point directly, and not merely be a story told 
— still less, as I have sometimes seen, a book 



SIMPLICITY IN TEACHING. 239 

read by the teacher to the class, as a reward for 
going through the lesson prescribed. The illus- 
tration should be short and applicable imme- 
diately, so that the child shall discern its pro- 
priety and force. Thus the Saviour taught. 
The lilies of the field — the fowls of the air — 
the fish in the net — the falling tower of Siloam 
— the cruelty of Pilate, and a multitude of 
such facts, constantly seen and easily under- 
stood, were habitually employed by Him to 
enforce and explain the truths which He would 
teach. The prophets and apostles taught upon 
the same plan, -under the same divine teaching 
of the Spirit. This it is which has made the 
Bible the book of deepest and most abiding 
interest, as well as the most easily intelligible 
to the youthful and the poor of every age. 
The Sunday-school teacher must adopt this 
model, and carry it out as faithfully and effect- 
ually as he can. 

The lesson must be taught in the plainest 
and simplest language. Often the very words 
will be found unintelligible to the children. 
I once asked a class of intelligent little boys 



240 SIMPLICITY IN TEACHING. 

in a lesson on the second chapter of Buth, the 
meaning of "gleaning" — and not one could 
tell me. It was a term out of their habit of 
use, and required explanation from other habits 
than they had ever seen. Such instances will 
often occur. The teacher can not be too sim- 
ple in instruction. It is a very high as well as 
valuable attainment to be able to do this. To 
do it effectually demands a variety of informa- 
tion — habitual patience and self-control — and 
a thorough knowledge of the real worth and 
meaning of words. Let a teacher take noth- 
ing for granted in the knowledge of children — 
but bring out the amount of their information, 
and the readiness of their thought, by constant 
and simple questions addressed thus to each. 
To use simple words is a most important re- 
quisite for deep and real teaching. All ex- 
traneous conversation must be cut off, and the 
attention kept fixed on the one subject, which 
is the appointed subject of study. Step after 
step must they go forward in the lesson — with 
the effort and purpose that it shall be thor- 
oughly understood. An hour will soon pass 



SIMPLICITY IN TEACHING. 241 

in the effort to make ten verses of Scripture 
plain to a class of little ones. And the more 
they understand and are interested in it, only 
the more difficult will it become to restrain the 
association of their thoughts, and to confine 
them to the actual line of teaching in hand. 




XXV. 

TEACHERS. MANNERS. ACTUAL WORK. BLESSED 

RESULTS. — JOY IN FINAL SUCCESS. 

£) HAT is more interesting than to see 
a Sunday-school teacher effectively 
operating upon the scheme which I 
have described — a class of boys or 
girls, intently listening, deeply in- 
terested, and affectionately devoted to their 
teacher — turning over their Bibles for refer- 
ences — eagerly answering the questions pro- 
posed, or as eagerly proposing their questions 
in return ? I have watched the operation of 
such a work for the Lord until my whole at- 
tention has become absorbed in the one class, 
and I felt my eyes glistening with tears of de- 
light. For such a work there will be required, 
beyond the information and simplicity of 
teaching of which I have spoken, great tender- 
ness of manner, real affection of heart, mani- 



MANNERS. 243 

fest love for the souls of the children, and for 
the Saviour to whom they are directed. The 
work must be all sincere, real, and fully confi- 
dent in the success and blessing which are de- 
sired. The teacher must feel that the benefit 
to be derived is mutual, and while he is re- 
freshing and guiding others, he is also refreshed 
and guided himself. Hopefulness in his un- 
dertaking is of inestimable value to him. His 
own cheerful and confiding manner will be im- 
parted to his children. They will partake of 
his spirit and reflect back upon him the excit- 
ing and encouraging influence which they re- 
ceive. Thus the whole engagement becomes a 
pleasure of the highest kind to both, and a 
source of advantage and profit to all. 

We will suppose the teacher seated before 
his class in this cheerful, hopeful spirit. They 
welcome him on the Sabbath morning as one 
of their chief and chosen friends. They rejoice 
to see him, and to unite with him in the work 
at hand. Deep seriousness as well as joy and 
delight mark their union in the religious exer- 
cises which open the school. As each child is 



244 ACTUAL WORK. 

a unit before the teacher, so is the spirit and 
aspect of the whole class a unit before the su- 
perintendent. There is perfect drill in quiet- 
ness and attention among them all. They 
thus minister exceedingly to the pleasure and 
prosperity of the whole assembly. The open- 
ing worship ended, no time is lost or wasted in 
talking or idleness. Instantly every one has 
his Bible ; and every Bible is opened at the ap- 
pointed place. They begin at once to read 
the lesson through — by single verses around 
the class. The teacher in a few words opens 
the subject which the lesson contains, and lays 
before them the story, or the fact, or the doc- 
trine, which they are to consider. Every thing 
then opens in a ready and regular way, and all 
are prepared to enter upon thejwork before 
them with delight. Then come the questions 
upon each succeeding verse, in which the ob- 
ject is not so much to get direct answers to 
simple questions as to engage the minds of the 
children to think upon the subject proposed, 
and to fasten these thoughts in their minds and 
memory. Accordingly, every general question 



ACTUAL WORK. 245 

is broken up by particular questions, illus- 
trating' the point which it presents ; and every 
answer suggests new questions, making clear 
and certain the information which the answer 
presents. On every verse or every question 
some extraneous illustration will occur to mind, 
or has been already prepared by the teacher — 
some anecdote, some fact from history, from 
natural history, or from personal events, to 
make the whole point more vivid and distinct. 
Such illustrations should be short, and not run 
out into long stories. They should be immedi- 
ately apposite and apparent, that the minds of 
children may see the resemblance or analogy at 
once. They should be very simple, so that the 
illustration shall not need more explanation 
than the lesson which it proposes to explain. 
They must be presented in a concise and dis- 
tinct form, and not dragged on in a sleepy, 
heavy way. Every such illustration well di- 
rected will awaken a new train of thought in 
the youthful mind, and stir them up to new 
life in the subject before them. There must be 

care, therefore, that the whole train is not led 
21* 



246 BLESSED KESULTS. 

off upon a new branch, a mere diversion. The 
constant connection must be maintained with 
the lesson in hand, and every part of the in- 
struction must run directly in that one line ; 
while the whole must be guided to a personal, 
religious application to the hearts of the chil- 
dren. Thus the work goes on in increasing in- 
terest for all, as the time goes by. And the 
whole time seems too short for the engagement 
they have had, and full of interest and delight 
to them in it. The closing exercises of praise 
and prayer are but a more solemn illustration 
of the united, affectionate attention than the 
opening. And the school closes, with the uni- 
versal feeling of delight in the minds of teacher 
and children. 

If this description could be carried out 
through a whole school, no employment could 
be more delightful, and perhaps no religious 
agency or instrument more effectual. It would 
be the Sunday-school enterprise in its perfec- 
tion of operation and result. We may hardly 
anticipate this. But we may certainly work 
toward it, and encourage each other to attain 



BLESSED RESULTS. 247 

it, in a constantly increasing measure of suc- 
cess. In such an operation ; the minds and 
hearts of children become intensely interested 
in the employment — many are brought up to a 
full and decided profession and maintenance of 
their love and obedience to a Saviour, in all His 
appointed ordinances ; and in the whole duties 
of a Christian life. It is a work of real salva- 
tion; and of abounding blessing. As our 
schools go on, the number of faithful, useful 
teachers constantly increases. Every year gives 
us manifest improvement in our style of work, 
and equally manifest advance in the results we 
attain. And the longer we are occupied, and 
the more enlarged becomes our experience in 
this blessed enterprise, the more satisfactory 
and compensating it appears. Thousands of 
children have gained salvation here. They are 
growing up to that "great multitude which 
no man can number, of all nations, and kin- 
dreds, and peoples, and tongues, standing be- 
fore the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed 
with white robes, and with palms in their 
hands, crying with a loud voice, Salvation to 



248 BLESSED RESULTS. 

our God which sitteth upon the throne, and 
unto the Lamb." The living Church of God 
" clothes herself with them all, as with an or- 
nament, and binds them on her as a bride 
doeth." Hundreds of teachers are receiving 
the glorious promise of the Lord by His an- 
gel, "They that be c teachers' [margin] shall 
shine as the brightness of the firmament — and 
they that turn many to righteousness, as the 
stars for ever and ever." "What glory already 
fills the heavenly courts from this work of 
heaven on the earth ! What encouragement 
abounds in it still upon the earth ! As genera- 
tions go on, in the advancing progress of the 
Lord's redeemed, new blessings and newinstru 7 
ments of blessing arise to us here. And every 
year enlarges our hopes and establishes our 
convictions in the worth of this enterprise for 
the Lord, in which we are occupied for His 
glory, and for the everlasting welfare of the 
children He hath purchased with His own 
precious blood. 

I can only say to my beloved fellow- teachers 
in closing this series- of familiar letters, ad- 



JOY IN FINAL SUCCESS. 249 

dressed personally to one of their number, but 
intended for the encouragement of them all, 
Let us work for the Lord ; with a ready mind 
and an earnest will. Do it as His work, and 
do it for Him. He will increase His gifts of 
grace and glory upon us — in our own experi- 
ence and enjoyment — and He will cause His 
blessed work to prosper in our hands. He 
gives us, as our reward, the love of our chil- 
dren — the gratitude of their parents — the ap- 
proval of His Church— the sweeter peace of 
our own possession of His Spirit — the pleasure 
of the toil — the actual growth of our own 
souls in grace by it — the salvation of the pre- 
cious souls committed to us — the promotion of 
the Saviour's glory here — the welcome of the 
Saviour's smile and approbation hereafter — a 
name of usefulness in His family below — a 
name of honor in His family above. We can 
not be without our reward— abounding re- 
wards. Let us be simple in motive, sincere in 
spirit, faithful in duty, persevering in hope — 
sowing our precious seed in the morning ; in 
the evening, withholding not our hands, but 



250 JOY IN FINAL SUCCESS. 

sowing still with unrelaxing zeal, and in due 
time we shall reap, if we faint not. A com- 
mander of a British vessel of war, sailing from 
the Cape of Good Hope, was charged with the 
convoy of a little sloop of value, to England. 
They were in mutual sight for many days. 
But a storm arose, and separated them finally. 
The armed vessel pursued ,her course home- 
ward, the captain not expecting to see his little 
charge again. He entered the channel and an- 
chored off Portsmouth in a fog, with a heavy 
heart, in remembrance of her. But when the 
thick fog lifted, what was his surprise at seeing 
the little lost craft anchored in peace directly 
by his side. In equal ignorance of his course, 
her commander had dropped his andhor there. 
Ah, what a joyful meeting there will be with 
many of our little ones, too, when, safe at last, 
we see them there. Doubt, perhaps despair, 
for them may have possessed us long. Igno- 
rance of them may have distressed us much. 
But when the darkness has passed, and the 
true light shineth, we shall welcome them with 
delight, and rejoice over them with singing. 



JOY IN FINAL SUCCESS. 



251 



But which shall prosper, whether this or that, 
let ns never forget that our Blessed Master 
says to each of us ; " Be thou faithful unto 

DEATH, AND I WILL GIVE THEE A CROWN OF 

Life/' 



THE END. 



Nf,v . s 18M. 



